Enchanting
by Stephen-Warner
Summary: I reread the books and realised that they cannot cast spells,even though they do , only Harry seems to get dinged for it though, but they can use magic items to their black little hearts' content. So what would happen if two pranksters informed Harry?
1. Chapter 1

AN: I Do NOT own Harry potter, related trademarks etc.. this sis strictly fan made fiction in the universe belonging to the author of the first 4 books, one J.K. Rowling.

-So let me get this straight.

Harry had a manic gleam in his eye as he asked the twins.

-"We" _cannot_ cast spells outside of school, however.

He started smiling.

-Any item we may use is fine as long as it's not an enchanted muggle artifact.

Fred pipped in excitedly.

-Yup, potions too.

George cut in.

-Though potions if you use them on muggles they'll dock you.

This was his first year and obviously and he had things to learn but this was the greatest loophole he had ever heard of.

-I've gotta go to the library, I'll catch you guys later ok?

Both twins grinned so wide you could see their wisdom teeth.

* * *

The Library had an entire section devoted to enchanting, everything from a simple self filling flask to a broomstick, which it turned was not the hardest thing to do, it just required much more power then one caster could offer.

The principle was easy, start with an object, made out of magic conducting material, wood, animal bits, anything that had once been living.

Cast a spell or inscribe runes to shape the magic you will be running through it in the proper shape.

Attach a magical reservoir, metal preferably but stone would do in a pinch.

Test it, in an open space preferably.

Enjoy until the charge is depleted.

The beauty of it was that charging a magical battery was not a spell, there were siphoning runes that would work on command or constantly depending on what you wanted to do.

Harry grinned.

He was gong to start making EVERYTHING in the books.

* * *

-Nice bracelet Harry, what is it made of?

Ron had just noticed the new jewelery adorning his best friend.

-Copper and leather, intertwined.

Ron made a face.

-Well it doesn't really accessorize with your robes but ok.

The-Boy-Who-Lived laughed at this.

-It's not supposed to, its got a lightening charm on it look.

He detached the bracelet and put it around Ron's wrist.

The redhead looked at it strangely before waving his arm around a little.

-Wow, this is weird. I feel so,.., Well, light.

He started bouncing on the balls of his feet, higher and higher every time.

-This is Awesome.

He topped his jumps at about 6ft and was happily bouncing up and down in the middle of the corridor.

-Come down you twat before you hurt yourself.

Harry caught him by the arm as he was landing.

-It's not free, it's got a permanent drain on it so basically you're sustaining yourself in the air with your magic.

Ron handed the bracelet back with a huge smile.

-That's still bloody amazing mate, can you make me one?

If he had not seen his friend bouncing up and down 6ft in the air a second ago he would have used that metaphor to describe how excited the boy was at the idea of having his very own charm.

-Sure mate, I'll make you one for christmas, how's that?

-That'd be great, you have any others like that?

Ron was looking Harry up and down trying to spot any other incongruities in his appearance.

Harry pulled out a necklace from under his robe.

-It plays music when I press here.

He indicated one of the links on the metal chain that had a bead of amber woven in.

-I don't have many songs stored in yet, I only got it finished last week and the WWN doesn't have enough artists that I can make a huge selection.

His friend looked at him quizzically.

-I can't hear anything, is it on?

Pointing at a different bead He answered.

-No, it's shut down right now but it doesn't matter if it was because I made it so it broadcasts the music directly in your inner ear so this way,

He raised a finger.

-No one else can hear it.

He raised another finger.

-No matter how loud you listen to it it can't hurt your ears.

Ron looked puzzled at this.

-Ok, it doesn't sound as cool as the bouncy bracelet but ok, anything else?

Harry shook his head.

-Sorry mate I'm still working on a couple of other devices but this is all I have been able to make in almost 3 weeks.

-It took you 3 weeks to make those? Wow it must be pretty hard to do then.

He smiled at his friend.

-Naa mate, it's actually pretty easy, the only difficult part is finding out what runes will work and how to put them together, once you got that and you have the raw material, it takes a few hours to cobble those together.

-You have to show me those, this is great.

As They started towards their class he turned to Ron.

-You know what's even better?

Ron grinned once again.

-No, What is?

-You can use those out of school too!

Harry laughed when his friend careened head long into a suit of armor as he was gaping at him and considering the possibilities of his last statement.

* * *

On Christmas morning Harry was woken up by an excited Ron.

"Merry Christmas," said Ron sleepily as Harry scrambled out of bed and

pulled on his bathrobe.

"You, too," said Harry. "Will you look at this? I've got some presents!"

"What did you expect, turnips?" said Ron, turning to his own pile, which

was a lot bigger than Harry's.

Harry picked up the top parcel. It was wrapped in thick brown paper and

scrawled across it was To Harry, from Hagrid. Inside was a roughly cut

wooden flute. Hagrid had obviously whittled it himself. Harry blew it -

it sounded a bit like an owl.

A second, very small parcel contained a note.

We received your message and enclose your Christmas present. From Uncle

Vernon and Aunt Petunia. Taped to the note was a fifty-pence piece.

"That's friendly," said Harry.

Ron was fascinated by the fifty pence.

"Weird!" he said, 'What a shape! This is money?"

"You can keep it," said Harry, laughing at how pleased Ron was. "Hagrid

and my aunt and uncle - so who sent these?"

"I think I know who that one's from," said Ron, turning a bit pink and

pointing to a very lumpy parcel. "My mom. I told her you didn't expect

any presents and - oh, no," he groaned, "she's made you a Weasley

sweater."

Harry had torn open the parcel to find a thick, hand-knitted sweater in

emerald green and a large box of homemade fudge.

"Every year she makes us a sweater," said Ron, unwrapping his own, "and

mine's always maroon."

"That's really nice of her," said Harry, trying the fudge, which was

very tasty.

His next present also contained candy - a large box of Chocolate Frogs

from Hermione.

This only left one parcel. Harry picked it up and felt it. It was very

light. He unwrapped it.

Something fluid and silvery gray went slithering to the floor where it

lay in gleaming folds. Ron gasped.

"I've heard of those," he said in a hushed voice, dropping the box of

Every Flavor Beans he'd gotten from Hermione. "If that's what I think it

is - they're really rare, and really valuable."

"What is it?"

Harry picked the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to

the touch, like water woven into material.

"It's an invisibility cloak," said Ron, a look of awe on his face. "I'm

sure it is - try it on."

Harry threw the cloak around his shoulders and Ron gave a yell.

"It is! Look down!"

Harry looked down at his feet, but they were gone. He dashed to the mirror. Sure enough, his reflection looked back at him, just his head

suspended in midair, his body completely invisible. He pulled the cloak

over his head and his reflection vanished completely.

"There's a note!" said Ron suddenly. "A note fell out of it!"

Harry pulled off the cloak and seized the letter. Written in narrow,

loopy writing he had never seen before were the following words: Your

father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was

returned to you. Use it well.

A Very Merry Christmas to you.

There was no signature. Harry stared at the note. Ron was admiring the

cloak.

"I'd give anything for one of these," he said. "Anything. What's the

matter?"

"Nothing," said Harry. He felt very strange. Who had sent the cloak? Had

it really once belonged to his father?

Putting it down he threw a package to Ron

As Ron opened it he found not only the bracelet he had been hoping for but also a pair of shoe laces and a flask.

-What are those?

The boy looked at Harry with a smile and a questioning look.

Harry jumped up from his bed excitedly and went to his friends bedside.

As he stepped near his friends present pile he scooped up the trainers lying on the ground.

-Here, put the shoe laces on those.

Ron looked surprised at the request but complied.

As he was switching the laces harry picked up the flask.

-This is just a first draft, no pun intended. It's an ever full flask, except that it only fills every 2 hours and so far I've given it a choice between cold water, lukewarm water and boiling hot morrocan mint tea for some odd reason.

He pointed to the three positions the cap could be set to.

-I was going for fresh water, orange juice and milk but it still needs some work.

Ron looked up from the shoes in is lap. 

-It's still pretty impressive mate.

He held up the shoes.

-Now what?

-Put them on you twat.

He laughed as his friend sat up to do so.

Ron stood in his pyjamas and trainers and looked at The-Boy-Who-Lived questioningly.

-Ok, face the wall and put you right foot on it.

Ron made a face at this but complied.

-Good, now lean back and lift your left foot.

Ron could not hold back the whoop of glee as he felt "down" shift from the ground to where his right show was pressed against the wall.

As he took a few tentative steps up the wall he could not help the laughter from coming out.

-This is amazing Harry, does it work on the ceiling?

The boy nodded.

-It does but there's a catch, it points to your right foot so if you run out of ceiling you're gonna go straight up until you run out of magic and then come back down until you run out of life. Plus this is really intense as far as magic goes so don't expect to be running a marathon or anything up there, the best I've been able to do is about 20 min straight and then I can't hold myself up.

Ron started running around the room at about head height wooping with joy.

He was passing above the door when the twins barged in.

-Harry, where's Ron?

They both pointed to the pile of still unopened present at their brother's bed.

Ron Sat down on the wall and put a finger in front of his lips.

He tried not to smile as he looked at the twins.

-No idea. Are you guys already done opening your presents?

Before he could say or think anything else, the dormitory door was flung

open and Fred and George Weasley bounded in. Harry stuffed the cloak

quickly out of sight. He didn't feel like sharing it with anyone else

yet.

"Merry Christmas!"

"Hey, look - Harry's got a Weasley sweater, too!"

Fred and George were wearing blue sweaters, one with a large yellow F on

it, the other a G.

"Harry's is better than ours, though," said Fred, holding up Harry's

sweater. "She obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family."

"Where's Ron?" George demanded.

"What's all this noise.

Percy Weasley stuck his head through the door, looking disapproving. He

had clearly gotten halfway through unwrapping his presents as he, too,

carried a lumpy sweater over his arm, which

Fred seized.

"P for prefect! Get it on, Percy, come on, we're all wearing ours, even

Harry got one."

"I - don't - want said Percy thickly, as the twins forced the sweater

over his head, knocking his glasses askew.

"And you're not sitting with the prefects today, either," said

George. "Christmas is a time for family."

-Boo!

All three boys jumped a foot in the air as the sound came from behind them.

Ron was rolling around on the wall laughing as all three of his brothers looked at him astonished.

-How did you...?

-What the...?

-Ronald, how...?

It was Harry's turn to glance significantly at Ron with a finger in front on his lips.

* * *

-Hagrid, that's a dragon! You live in a wooden hut!.

Hermione's exclamation was not ill received by Harry. He had been working on a couple of new enchantments and had not realized that that fire proof warding would come in so handy so fast.

He caught Ron's eye and pointed to his bracelet and nodded significantly.

-Hagrid we need to go back up to the castle but listen to me,' He stared into the giants eyes. 'Nobody can know about this, do you understand?' He grabbed the giants forearm. 'They will send you to prison for this.'

Hagrid's eyes widened in comprehension as the implication of this latest decision sunk in and he nodded slowly.

* * *

-This bloody thing weighs a ton.

Ron had started his litany almost from the moment he had picked up the crate and even with Harry's bracelet attached to it it was unwieldy.

It had only been his constant reminder to be quiet that had kept the whining at close to manageable volume.

-We're almost there Ron plus your brother said midnight, we've still got 20 min to spare.

-Yeah we do, thanks to you.

He looked down at his new belt.

-Without this the bloody thing would have sent me to the hospital wing, did ever thank you for that by the way?

-Thank me by making sure we get out of this scot-free, the silencing charm is the most basic of all so keep it down.

The dragon keepers had been a cheery bunch as they attached the crate between their brooms and looked at the lightening charm on the bracelet Harry had removed after they arrived.

His heart was lightening with every passing second as they could see the specs disappearing on the horizon, Norbert was going, going, gone.

They were making there way to the bottom of the tower when they heard the foot steps coming the other way.

Ron gasped as he realized that they had left the invisibility cloak at the top of the tower.

Harry pushed him against the wall and grabbed something at his new dragon hide belt.

Ron felt a sensation like cold treacle spread from his belt all over his body.

As this was happening he felt magic draining out of his body like he had never felt before, this was worst then when he used the spider boots.

Suddenly something he could not see pushed across his chest and held him against the wall as the light from a lantern bobbed up the stairs.

His breath was getting ragged as he saw Filch's mug come up and he was sure that the fool could detect him by the thundering of his heart.

He was amazed when the man did not even give him a second glance.

A minute later he came back down an once again completely ignored them, even Ms. Norris barely spared them a glance as they went back down.

Another minute passed when he felt the pressure on his chest ease and suddenly he was being gripped by the front of his robes and dragged up the stairs.

As he came up to the moonlight he could barely distinguish an outline in front of him that suddenly resolved into Harry panting and out of breath.

He reached to Ron's belt and after fiddling with the buckle the redhead felt the trickling sensation in reverse and he could suddenly see his hands in front of his face.

They both looked at each other and the tension of the past few minutes hit them all of sudden. They could naught but laugh hysterically and try to muffle it in their collar.

It was a good 5 minutes of laughing before Ron could get the breath to ask.

-What the bloody hell was that? Did you make us invisible? Can you do that? That's bloody brilliant mate.

Harry was breathing shallowly for a minute before he could answer the barrage of question.

-No Ron. This was another spell, much harder then anything we have ever seen. It's called a Disillusionment charm, it doesn't make you invisible, just very hard to see, especially in poor light.

The problem is, it's such an advanced charm people like you or me can only cast it about once a day before all of our magical energy runs out so be careful when you use it.

He pointed to the dial on the belt buckle and showed him the emergency position for the charm.

As they made their way back to the tower, one again under the invisibility cloak Ron could not help but speculate very very quietly at how many other amazing things could be done with this enchanting business.

* * *

-'What is that harry?'

The question had come from behind him as he was studying for the final exams.

He lifted the square of leather he had been working on so Hermione could see.

-'It's a notebook, I take notes in it and then I study from it.

She gave him a disbelieving look as she studied the thing in his hand.

As her look grow more intrigued she started reaching for it.

Quickly Harry lowered out of reach of her questing fingers.

-'But I want to see it.'

-'I'm sure you do, and you can see it just fine, its you touching it that I have an objection to.'

He pressed a rune on the side of the item and the page blank out.

-'What the...? What happened?'

She bent down to reach for the item again.

Harry stood up from the couch and put the the thing in his backpack.

-'Stubborn little witch. It's a notebook, I use it to study, I made it, If you're a good girl I might get you one for your birthday ok?'

She put her fists on her hips angrily.

-'Where did you get it? I've never heard of anything like that.'

Harry grinned at the thought of anyone copying his design. It had taken him a month to put the idea on paper and another month to find the correct sequence of runes to make it work, he seriously doubted any wizard before him had been willing to spend so much time for something that ultimately was a glorified notebook that cost more to make then most of their textbooks.

-'I don't imagine you did Hermione, I made it. It's so I can work this summer.'

-'You can't use magic outside of school!'

Before she could start on another breaking rules rant he cut her off.

-'I already checked, it's casting spells that's not allowed, and as for muggle artifacts well it turns out its items made by muggles, so if I was for example to 'make' a bike and enchant it to fly and be invisible, it would NOT be a muggle artifact and therefore fall under the flying artefacts rules rather then automatically be a misuse of muggle artefact. Plus as a bonus, I could use it as much as I want as the wizarding world has no underage driving rules, if your parents want to buy you a broom, go for it, just don't get spotted by muggles.

His voice softened as he saw her shocked look.

-'Now do you want to see so you can find out how it works or to tell me off?'

* * *

As they got off the train Ron looked over at the ugly bunch of muggles waiting for Harry.

-'Are you sure you're going to be ok, they look pretty mean.'

Hermione took a look at the Dursley's and could only agree at Ron's assessment.

He smiled at their concern, it was nice to have friends.

-'I'll be fine guys remember, they don't know we can't do magic and I have all my artefacts.

He grinned as he pointed to the glove of paralysis Hermione had suggested after the notebook incident.

-'I guess it's just too bad for them I haven't figured how to make a _finite_ Artefact and they'll have to wait for it to wear out. How long does it take again?'

He taped his cheek thoughtfully.

-'Was it 3 or 4 hours when we tried it?'

-'Malfoy's still on the train so at least 3.'

She replied with a giggle.


	2. Chapter 2

The creature sitting on his bed had grabbed the bedside table and started hitting himself on the head with it.

That had been the first clue.

His uncle hissing at him to be quiet from the door ad is eyes promising murder if it happened again was the second.

Having no wish to see if he would go through with it Harry had reached for the glove on his bedside table and patted the thing on the shoulder.

He was now stuffed in the cupboard, stiff as, well as a board, and Harry was going through the mail the blasted creature had kept from him.

He had already sent Hedwig to Dumbledore with an explanation of what had happened, hopefully he could sort this out without the blasted thing trying anything else.

* * *

He shot out of the fireplace and landed painfully on the hearth.

As he stood he reached to his belt and set it to auto-clean, no point in looking all disheveled when he had spent a month creating the chameleon belt so that his clothes would always look perfect.

He made his way to the window, trying to determine where he was when two unwelcome heads of blond hair met his sight.

Malfoy and what he presumed was his father were making their way to the front door of the shop.

Quickly he ran to the darkest corner of the shop he was in and started the disillusionment charm. Hopefully it was dark enough that he could stay undetected.

* * *

That had been an interesting little fly on the wall moment.

Harry considered the implications of what he had hard as he stepped into Diagon Alley.

The trickling sensation receded and he stepped away from the wall casually as two witches starred at him.

He wadded through the crowd in the direction of the leaky cauldron, with any luck that was he destination the Weasleys had had on their mind when they had set off.

Harry was not tall. Even for a 12 year old he was short. After the 3rd time he had dashed forward because he thought he saw a red head ahead he decided to take matters into his own hands.

He reached down and activated his shoe laces. As he straightened up he reached to his left arm and activated his bracelet. The drain on his magic was significant but he just needed to reach a good vantage point.

The-Boy-Who-Lived crouched and pushed with all the strength in his leg towards the side of the alley.

He smiled as he heard the gasp from muggle born parents behind him.

He calmly sailed through the air a good 6ft over the head of the crowds before gently spinning and putting his feet against the wall.

He always found the shift in gravity amazing. It looked like the whole world had shifted and everyone else in the world as some sort of spiderman clinging to a cliff infinitely high.

Ignoring the stares and pointing he turned to the entrance of the alley and saw the tight group of redheads making their way through the alley.

He scanned the ground around them finding a safe spot to land but there was simply too much pushing and shoving to allow him to land safely.

He almost failed to notice when one of the red specks launched itself from the group in his direction.

The shout in his direction drew his attention and he extended a hand out from the wall.

Ron looked cool robes streaming behind him one hand extend to catch Harry's as he flew by him.

The spectacle must have been surreal to the normal parents of children out there, 2 twelve year olds accomplishing what they had only seen before in kung fu movies, flying through the air as if gravity was but a suggestion and standing at 90 degrees on a wall as if everyone else merely knuckled under to gravity. Harry could see at least 2 couples starring at their child in a completely different light now.

Harry and Ron started laughing when they looked up to all the astonished faces above them.

-'You ok mate, you didn't come out of the leaky cauldron and we were worried that you hadn't pronounced your destination properly.'

Harry pointed to the ground, gesturing for Ron to go first before he responded.

-'Yeah, I ended up in Borgins and Burkes,' He gestured quickly for Ron to be quiet. 'I'll tell you all about it later, I need to tell your father about it too, he'll want to hear this.'

As they stepped onto the level ground of the alley they were met by the Weasley clan. The glare shot at Ron by his mother was a small price to pay for the look that everyone else was giving the both of them. It was evenly split between Percy and his father torn half by jealous envy at the awe inspiring display and disapproval at breaking rules, Ginny and Hermione standing there mouth open both at the open display of seemingly powerful magic without any ministry retaliation and the relaxed way both boys had accomplished the mid air acrobatics as if they often treated walls like exclusive alley ways reserved for the both of them and the twins green with jealousy both at the tricks that they were right now wondering how to reproduce and the way it had been done in front of the largest audience possible outside of Hogwarts great hall.

The boys turned to the other and grinned so wide their back teeth were in danger of sunburns, this was going to be a great year.

* * *

Lockhart had unveiled the pixies and even he had had trouble stiffling a laugh.

They did look mean but he had expected something on the level of a rampaging werewolf cub with the way this buffoon had hyped it up.

Seamus Finnigan couldn't control himself. He let out a snort of

laughter that even Lockhart couldn't mistake for a scream of terror.

"Yes?" He smiled at Seamus.

"Well, they're not - they're not very - dangerous, are they?" Seamus

choked.

"Don't be so sure!" said Lockhart, waggling a finger annoyingly at

Seamus. "Devilish tricky little blighters they can be!"

The pixies were electric blue and about eight inches high, with poin

faces and voices so shrill it was like listening to a lot of budgies

arguing. The moment the cover had been removed, they

had started jabbering and rocketing around, rattling the bars and

making bizarre faces at the people nearest them.

"Right, then," Lockhart said loudly. "Let's see what you make of

them!" And he opened the cage.

As they exploded into the room Harry sent a surge of magic to his new ring.

A blue shield surrounded his left arm with a crackle of energy.

He had barely finished the design on it yesterday and it was still largely untested. He had not been an inventor for very long but he know that in the field in a semi threatening situation was not the best place to test if his rune work was working.

Two of the pixies sped to him and he swatted both of them out of the air with his arm. The loud crack of energy had been unexpected, as well the warmth he began to feel around his index finger.

Wisely he reached for his wand and starting casting body binds.

-'Harry behind you!' Hermione shouted.

Raising his shielded arm he turned quicky and felt a sharp burn on his finger as the shield stopped three of the pixies in their track.

He looked down and he could see where the ring lay broken in 4 pieces. Too much magic had been running through it and looking at his finger he noticed the burn it had left there.

The bell rang and there was a mad rush toward the exit. In the relative

calm that followed, Lockhart straightened up, caught sight of Harry,

Ron, and Hermione, who were almost at the door, and said, "Well, I'll

ask you three to just nip the rest of them back into their cage." He

swept past them and shut the door quickly behind him.

"Can you believe him?" roared Ron as one of the remaining pixies bit

him painfully on the ear.

"He just wants to give us some hands-on experience," said Hermione,

immobilizing two pixies at once with a clever Freezing Charm and

stuffing them back into their cage.

"Hands on? "said Harry, who was trying to grab a pixie dancing out of

reach with its tongue out. "Hermione, he didn't have a clue what he

was doing -"

"Rubbish," said Hermione. "You've read his books - look at all those

amazing things he's done -"

"He says he's done," Ron muttered.

-'You ok mate,' Ron asked soliticiously. 'That shield looked cool but I'm not sure it's quite right.' He gestured to Harry's finger, turning red from the burn.

-'Yeah, it needs a little more fiddling I agree.'

* * *

As the trio waked towards the wailing music Harry reached inside his robe and puled out 4 items.

-'Hey guys hold a sec, I have something for the both of you.'

As both his friends looked at him quizzically he handed them the first 2 items, a pair of flasks.

-'Remember that flask I got you last Christmas?' As Ron nodded he continued. 'I finally got the kinks out of it.'

He handed each a metal flask with a leather cover. Each one was covered in runes and had four stones embedded in the cover.

-'Now all you need to do is touch a stone and send a surge of magic through it and it'll feel with a liquid depending on the stone,' He pointed to each stone in turn. 'Water, Hot chocolate, orange juice and vegetable soup.'

He smiled at the expressions passing though his friends face as each one was mentioned, indifference, happiness, curiosity and disgust.

-'This is amazing Harry,' Hermione gushed as she looked at the runes on the flask. 'You're getting amazing at this enchanting business.

He smiled wider at the praise.

-'This one is still a little experimental so don't hesitate to criticize it if you find anything wrong ok?'

He handed each of them a thick silver and leather bracelet. Almost two inch wide it was made of five alternating plates of silver like metal and a dark almost black leather with thick imprints in it.

-'It's got a warming charm in this one,' He pointed to one of the plates. 'This one is a '_alohamora_', you just touch it to the lock and push some power to it.' He moved on t the third plate. 'This one is the 2nd hardest thing I have ever done, Its a communication spell, Here's how it works, 'Harry pointed to the one on his right arm, the two gems embedded in the leather were black but had diferent runes inscribed on each. 'You touch this one and say out loud your message, be careful because it records sound so if it's to loud around you the recipient might not get anything but noise, then you touch this one and it sends a conjured bird where you're pointing and if there's another bracelet in range it delivers the message to whoever has it around their wrist.'

Ron looked up from tying it on his right arm.

-'What's the range?'

-'About 600 miles and it flies at about 200 miles an hour. There's a trick to it though, when the bird reaches that range it starts flying in a circle clockwise so if you don't know where the person you are sending it to is the best thing to do is aim to the left of where you think they are, this way it's more likely that they'll get it faster.'

He smiled even wider at the look of confusion on their face, he could practically see her mind working through how the spell had been crafted to have this particular quirk.

-'This one has an embedded '_reparo_',' He pointed to his glasses. 'It might not be as useful to you guys as to me but I figured it'd still be useful.'

He fingered the last one nervously.

'This one is the most difficult piece of magic I've ever done.' He looked up. 'You guys remember my ring of shield at the beginning of the semester right?' As they nodded he continued. 'this is the new version. Ron do you remember how draining the dissilusionment charm is? This one is even worse.' Ron stared at the innocuous plate when he heard this. 'What it does is cover your arm and part of your shoulder with liquid metal, it absorbs shock and spell fire and converts it into heat. When I tested it I could only sustain it about 2 mins, so be careful when you use it ok?'

Hermione could only nod in shock, when had her best friend become a genius enchanter? And what was she doing while all this was happening?

* * *

Catch the bludger or die trying? Harry had a few objections to that.

"So no pressure, Harry" said Fred, winking at him.

As they walked out onto the pitch, a roar of noise greeted them; mainly

cheers, because Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were anxious to see

Slytherin beaten, but the Slytherins in the crowd made their boos and

hisses heard, too. Madam Hooch, the Quidditch teacher, asked Flint

and Wood to shake hands, which they did, giving each other

threatening stares and gripping rather harder than was necessary.

"On my whistle," said Madam Hooch. "Three ... two ... one. . .

With a roar from the crowd to speed them upward, the fourteen

players rose toward the leaden sky. Harry flew higher than any of

them, squinting around for the Snitch.

"All right there, Scarhead?" yelled Malfoy, shooting underneath him as

though to show off the speed of his broom.

Harry had no time to reply. At that very moment, a heavy black

Bludger came pelting toward him; he avoided it so narrowly that he

felt it ruffle his hair as it passed.

"Close one, Harry!" said George, streaking past him with his club in his

hand, ready to knock the Bludger back toward a Slytherin. Harry saw

George give the Bludger a powerful whack in the direction of Adrian

Pucey, but the Bludger changed direction in midair and shot straight

for Harry again.

Harry dropped quickly to avoid it, and George managed to hit it hard

toward Malfoy. Once again, the Bludger swerved like a boomerang

and shot at Harry's head.

Harry put on a burst of speed and zoomed toward the other end of the

pitch. He could hear the Bludger whistling along behind him. What

was going on? Bludgers never concentrated on one player like this; it

was their job to try and unseat as many people as possible ...

Fred Weasley was waiting for the Bludger at the other end. Harry

ducked as Fred swung at the Bludger with all his might; the Bludger

was knocked off course.

"Gotcha!" Fred yelled happily, but he was wrong; as though it was

magnetically attracted to Harry, the Bludger pelted after him once

more and Harry was forced to fly off at full speed.

It had started to rain; Harry felt heavy drops fall onto his face,

splattering onto his glasses. He didn't have a clue what was going on

in the rest of the game until he heard Lee Jordan, who was

commentating, say, "Slytherin lead, sixty points to zero ='

The Slytherins' superior brooms were clearly doing their jobs, and

meanwhile the mad Bludger was doing all it could to knock Harry

out of the air. Fred and George were now flying so close to him on

either side that Harry could see nothing at all except their flailing arms

and had no chance to look for the Snitch, let alone catch it.

"Someone's - tampered - with - this - Bludger -" Fred grunted,

swinging his bat with all his might at it as it launched a new attack on

Harry.

"We need time out," said George, trying to signal to Wood and stop

the Bludger breaking Harry's nose at the same time.

Wood had obviously got the message. Madam Hooch's whistle rang

out and Harry, Fred, and George dived for the ground, still trying to

avoid the mad Bludger.

"What's going on?" said Wood as the Gryffindor team huddled

together, while Slytherins in the crowd jeered. "We're being

flattened. Fred, George, where were you when that Bludger stopped

Angelina scoring?"

"We were twenty feet above her, stopping the other Bludger from

murdering Harry, Oliver," said George angrily. "Someone's fixed it -

it won't leave Harry alone. It hasn't gone for anyone else all game.

The Slytherins must have done something to it."

"But the Bludgers have been locked in Madam Hooch's office since

our last practice, and there was nothing wrong with them then . . . . "

said Wood, anxiously.

Madam Hooch was walking toward them. Over her shoulder, Harry

could see the Slytherin team jeering and pointing in his direction.

"Listen," said Harry as she came nearer and nearer, "with you two

flying around me all the time the only way I'm going to catch the

Snitch is if it flies up my sleeve. Go back to the rest of the team and

let me deal with the rogue one."

"Don't be thick," said Fred. "It'll take your head off."

Wood was looking from Harry to the Weasleys.

(I Oliver, this is insane," said Alicia Spinner angrily. "You can't let Harry

deal with that thing on his own. Let's ask for an inquiry -))

"If we stop now, we'll have to forfeit the match!" said Harry. "And

we're not losing to Slytherin just because of a crazy Bludger! Come

on, Oliver, tell them to leave me alone!"

"This is all your fault," George said angrily to Wood. " `Get the Snitch

or die trying,' what a stupid thing to tell him -"

Madam Hooch had joined them.

"Ready to resume play?" she asked Wood.

Wood looked at the determined look on Harry's face.

"All right," he said. "Fred, George, you heard Harry -leave him alone

and let him deal with the Bludger on his own."

The rain was falling more heavily now. On Madam Hooch's whistle,

Harry kicked hard into the air and heard the telltale whoosh of the

Bludger behind him. Higher and higher Harry climbed; he looped and

swooped, spiraled, zigzagged, and rolled. Slightly dizzy, he nevertheless

kept his eyes wide open, rain was speckling his glasses and ran up his

nostrils as he hung upside down, avoiding another fierce dive from the

Bludger. He could hear laughter from the crowd; he knew he must

look very stupid, but the rogue Bludger was heavy and couldn't change

direction as quickly as Harry could; he began a kind of roller-coaster

ride around the

edges of the stadium, squinting through the silver sheets of rain to the

Gryffindor goal posts, where Adrian Pucey was trying to get past

Wood

A whistling in Harry's ear told him the Bludger had just missed him

again; he turned right over and sped in the opposite direction.

"Training for the ballet, Potter?" yelled Malfoy as Harry was forced to

do a stupid kind of twirl in midair to dodge the Bludger, and he fled, the

Bludger trailing a few feet behind him; and then, glaring back at

Malfoy in hatred, he saw it - the Golden Snitch. It was hovering inches

above Malfoy's left ear - and Malfoy, busy laughing at Harry, hadn't

seen it.

For an agonizing moment, Harry hung in midair, not daring to speed

toward Malfoy in case he looked up and saw the Snitch.

As he reached out for the snitch he saw the rogue bludger coming and sent the pulse of magic to the bracelet.

The sensation of metal covering his arm, flowing over his fingers to the tip his fingernails calmed him down as he reached forward still.

The bludger hit with an all mighty wham that echoed through the stadium.

Everyone held their breath as the noise died down and the sound of fire bursting from Harry's sleeve could clearly be heard.

His arm had not even moved when the bludger hit it but the nature of the enchantment transformed the energy of the hit into heat, in this case enough heat to set fire to his sleeve.

He closed his metalic hand over the snitch and in the hush that surrounded the stadium gently alighted on the ground and reach for his wand with his left hand.

After casting a water charm on his burning sleeve he looked up at the crowd.

A flash of movement caught his eye and he turned to see the bludger speeding down to him once again.

With careful deliberation Harry set his right foot and drew his arm back.

As the bludger accelerated he started putting all his weight in a punch that connected with it less then a foot from his face.

Everyone in the stadium had to shield their eyes from the explosion of light that followed.

By the time they opened their eyes again all that was left of the bludger was a smoking piece of leather in a burnt patch of grass.

Colin started taking pictures of Harry as the silver liquid flowed from his now bare arm back into the bracelet on his right arm.

The quidditch robe he was wearing had one sleeve burned off to the shoulder on the right side.

As Harry gently collapsed to his knees from the magical exhaustion he raised his hand to show the snitch in his hand.

Catch it or die trying huh?

* * *

Harry donned the bots Ron had made for him. He got what they were supposed to do but despite the trust he had in his friend he was still weary.

-'You ready?' Ron stood up with the prototypes on his feet.

He stood up and felt the drain on his magic both from the shoe laces and the boots themselves.

-'let's do this.' He tried to hide his trepidation as he stepped off the pier onto the surface of the lake.

Ron jumped off and started gliding on the water, leaving behind him a thin sheet of ice.

Harry felt the ground under his feet and he was glad for the lighting charm in the shoe laces. It meant that his magic was draining twice as fast but after a year of constantly wearing the lighting charm on his wrist he could easily spare enough to ice skate on the lake.

He started laughing as he saw Hermione and Ron squaring off for a race to the middle of the lake.

He began chasing after them when he saw the shadow under the water right behind them.

The tentacle burst out of the water right behind Ron and picked him up.

As Harry started racing towards him to help he realized that it was not trying to harm him, just slow him down so that Hermione had a head start.

Ron started yelling that it was cheating when the tentacles burst right in front of her and forced her to start weaving in and out to get to the mid point of the lake.

Harry activated his bracelet and jumped with everything he had to get ahead of her.

He was about 15ft in the air and starting to arch down in front of her when a tentacle rose up to catch him around the waist.

He grabbed onto it and swung on it with all his strength before letting go at the top of the arc.

More tentacles sprouted out of the water and all three of them started playing a bizarre game of tag with the giant squid, jumping high in the air and bouncing of the tentacles.

Any time one of them was caught they would be ferried back towards the shore to start the race from the beginning.

Hermione had taken to the lightening spells much better then Ron and she seemed to be able to judge exactly where she would land much better then either boy could. After 15 mins of acrobatics and surreal flying through the air all three of them were skating towards the shore.

Harry was in the lead when he felt the last of his magic drain out from his feet.

He barely had time to let out a squeak of surprise before the ice under his feet melted and he fell head first in the water.

Only 20 ft from the pier he started swimming slowly to the ladder and climbed out of the drink.

He was still laughing when both is friends caught up to him and stepped onto the wood.

-'Harry are you ok? Do we need to get you a pepper up?' Hermione asked solicitously.

He kept smiling as he pointed to his bracelet that was gently glowing.

-'Don't worry, I just got enough power going for this, it'll keep me until we get to the castle."

He looked at Ron as he undid the magic shoes.

-'That was awesome Mate, any other prototypes you want to try, don't hesitate!'

He blushed as Hermione nodded vigorously with a huge grin splitting her face.

* * *

The attacks had drawn everyone indoors.

Even without the curfew imposed by the teachers no one would have been wandering the corridors so late at night.

That was a good thing for him. He was going to test his latest idea and he did NOT anyone to get the wrong impression especially …

-'Damn that man, why must I disturb my sleep schedule when we all know none of the children are allowed to wander the corridors anyway.'

...Him!

Harry flattened himself against the wall. Of all the people wandering the corridors he had to wander into Lockhart. Damn. Damn. Damn.

The lack of sleep was starting to show. Unkempt hair, ruffled robes, he was definitely losing the battle against actually doing some work for once. How could anybody have ever thought that this ponce had done a lick of work in his life?

He held his breath as the idiot slowly crawled by not paying attention to anything in his surrounding.

The monster could have walked up to him and bit him on the arse and he would have gone on whining about not having enough time to admire himself in the mirror.

Harry breathed out when the man had passed out of sight.

Now to get to the astronomy tower as quickly as possible, he barely had two hours of moonlight left.

The climb to the top of the tower itself was relatively easy, with the weight bracelet he could dash from floor to floor with nary a sound flitting from shadow to shadow.

Finally he had arrived.

He stepped out onto the tower crown into the moonlight pure and white on his face; Perfect.

Quickly he took of his cloak, carefully folding it on the stone bench. Next he took of his shirt and lay it on the marble surface in the center of the tower. Standing there bare chested he reached in his pocket and took out the main ingredient to his plan.

From his pocket came a roll of thread like mercury being poured out.

Making sure to let the moon shine on his pattern he started to weave in and out of the inner fabric of the shirt.

It took him the whole two hours with many pauses to rest his hand, he had not imagined pegasus hair would be so difficult to work with.

He tied the final note and took out his tiny gold knife to cut the thread.

The pattern darkened on the shirt, drinking in the moonlight greedily, like a starving vampire.

All of a sudden the shirt flashed. A pattern of feathers that had not been there before appeared and winked out.

Harry blinked to clear his eyes of the glare.

He put the shirt back on and was glad when he could not feel anything on is skin.

Now came the time to test this idea.

Carefully he stepped up onto the bench surrounding the tower and then onto the parapet.

A gust of wind chose this moment to blow from in front of him.

He gripped the sides of the turret tightly and looked down.

It was a long way to go. And those rocks looked mighty sharp.

He double checked that his weight bracelet was on and ready in case it failed, it would not preventing him getting hurt but hopefully it would mean a few broken bones rather then outright death.

Well here went nothing.

He dived.

The sensation was even more exhilarating then diving on a broom, he could feel the weightlessness as the air rushed by.

As his eyes watered from the force of the wind he idly mused that maybe his next item should be a better pair of glasses for stupid stunts like this.

He pushed magic to the shirt.

He felt the fabric tear away in strips, leaving a few ragged wisps around his torso.

He tried to gulp when the fear that it had failed gripped him.

That was when he heard the flap.

All of a sudden his descent stopped.

He looked over his right shoulder and saw the feathery white flapping gently.

Turning to his left he saw the other wing beating in time.

He thought of ascending and was rewarded with a stronger beat as he started going back up to the top of the tower.

He started laughing out loud as he glided smoothly over the castle, gently ascending back to the astronomy tower.

He was making a circle of Gryffndor tower when he saw a bushy haired form staring out of the window.

Smiling even wider he maneuvered to the window and alighted on the ledge.

-'What do you think?'

She could not help but smile at his infectious grin.

-'I don't think I would want one but it certainly looks fun.' She frowned. 'Aren't you worried about running out of magic?'

If possible his eyes started sparkling even more.

-'No, that's the beauty of this design, it mostly flies on moonlight.' He pointed to the full moon in the sky. 'The only worry is during the day and I won't be doing that too much.'

She looked at his bare torso.

-'Actually you're next problem is going to be coming up with a way to not be bare chested anytime you do this'

He looked down at his thin frame clearly showing the goosebumps from the wild ride and blushed.

He mock glared at her before leaning back and tumbling out of the open window.

He peals of laughter chased him all the way back to his invisibility cloak.


	3. Chapter 3

Now that he was in Diagon alley he could relax.

He pulled out his latest experiment.

It was a leather glove with the fingers cut out. He had barely started sewing the metal plates in the lining. The rune work was not very extensive but it did use up a lot of power.

He had redesigned his original shielding spell.

The whole sleeve covering the arm was fun but after the third shirt he thought he needed to use a different design.

This one had a triple function, hand clenched it was a simple shield spell that shifted all the energy into the ultrasonic spectrum, and as a bonus, all of it was focused towards the caster, sonic grenade and shield combined. Fingers extended it cast an _expelliarmus_ in the direction the fingers were pointed.

Palm flat forward it cast a summoning charm specifically calibrated to wands.

He had read about summoning and banishing charms and even though it was probably a year or two early to cast them they actually did not need that much power, all he needed really was proper focus and there was nothing more focused then steel when you engraved runes on it.

* * *

-'Harry what are those?' Hermione had walked up to his table after finally making it back to the common room.

-'Bracers Hermione.'

He chuckled as she gently whacked him on the back of the head.

-'I gathered as much Mister,' She sounded like the capital letter when she said the word. 'What are you planning on having them do?'

He smiled at her at the obvious deduction that this was yet another magical item he was enchanting.

-'I don't know if I should tell you.' He laughed at her glare. 'Well you did hit me and it hurts.' He theatrically rubbed the back of his head.

She folded her arms and started tapping her foot.

-'Ok, ok, tell you what.' He smiled. 'I'll give you a hint.' He pulled one of the bracers towards him and pulled out the copper plate inside it. 'This is the rune for flowing, and this is one here means "the closing door",' He was pointing to the runes in sequence. 'This one reacts with its twin on the other bracer when they are pressed together, it's an activation rune.' He pointed to the plate not quite finished on the other bracer. 'This one is "Stone" or "Solid" and this one,' He pointed to the last rune in the sequence. 'Is the "Parting of the way".'

He watched carefully at her face as she worked out the way in which the runes would activate.

She was quickly losing the frown as the possible ways in which the runes interacted aligned themselves in her head.

She was about to make a suggestion when Ron walked in the room.

-'Hey guys what are you up to?' He looked first at Hermione's intense face then at Harry's before looking down at his latest device.

-'I'm making Hermione guess what this "device" does.' He smiled at the oblivious girl.

-'Did you give her a clue?' The red haired boy asked looking down at the semi familiar runes.

Harry gave him the same reading of the runes he had given Hermione.

-'Oh, ok, let me see.' His brows furrowed in concentration. 'But this is Norse runes right?' He recoiled a little as his friend glared up from her thoughts.

As The-Boy-Who-Lived nodded affirmatively he continued.

-'Then you gave them to me in reverse order, it should be "An opening in stone, flowing around you before closing",' He looked for confirmation in Harry's eyes. 'So something to walk through stone walls?'

When Harry nodded he smiled.

-'Wicked!'

They both turned to Hermione who was looking shocked at Ron.

Both friends dissolved in laughter at her amazement that her red haired friend _could actually think_.

* * *

-'Harry, what is this?' Ignoring the _deja vu_ he looked up from his homework.

-'What is what Ginny?'

She pointed to a contraption on the other side of the table.

It consisted of two boards, one about two feet wide and a foot across, on which lay his divination textbook currently open somewhere in the astrology section, and a smaller one just beneath it about a foot square with a roll on each end that was slowly rolling parchment up.

On the top part sat two copper arms with white ivory tips and over the bottom part fluttered a quill, quickly writing what appeared to be dates and times followed by short sentences.

Above all this floated what looked like an eyeball made out of ivory with a silver iris and an elvin pupil.

-'Oh, that,' He smiled. 'This is the Resonant Intuitive Prediction Intelligence Technology, R.I.P. I.T. For short.' His grin got wider as he saw her trying to work her mind around the acronym.

-'And what is it doing Harry?' She looked genuinely intrigued by the concept.

-'Writing your brother's homework right now.' As he said it the eyeball came to rest on top of one of the arms and the scroll gently rolled itself back up.

-'How does it work?' The look the girl was giving was not on par with Hermione's technical know how but did remind him of her father when he laid his hand on muggle technology.

-'It reads my textbook and depending on what time period I set it on it writes out a prediction for the person you enter into it,' He grabbed the eye from it's perch. 'You write down the full name of the person as well as their birthday and what time period the prediction needs to be in on a piece of paper then you show it to the eye,' he wrote down Ginny's and pointed the eye at it. 'Then you set the gloominess on this side,' He pointed to a dial on the left side of the machine. It had four setting, Cheery, Normal, Doom and Gloom and Trelawney. Harry reached around and dialed it down to Normal. 'Finally you wind how much parchment you need to be written and off it goes.'

He finished winding about a foot of parchment onto the bottom reel and let go of the eye.

Ginny watched fascinated as the left arm rapidly turned the pages to settle on her birth month then as the eye darted forward and back switched to another page.

-'It's not super fast and you do have to read through it afterward to make sure it actually wrote predictions and not chapter headings or footnotes but other then that it means you can work on charm homework' He pointed to the paper he had been working on. 'Rather then that fraud's rubbish.' his thumb was pointing to the quickly rolling parchment on the machine.

-'Gods, that must have taken you forever to create.' It did not surprise Harry that she would know of his fascination with enchanting, after all her brother had picked it up himself almost a year and a half ago.

-'Naa, maybe a month of work, the eye was the hard part really and most of that was because it needed teeny tiny engraving on the inside to work,' He caught it before it could come to rest on it's perch and pressing a finger on the pupil let it pop apart in his hand. 'See.' He proffered a green cylinder as long as the diameter of the eye covered in runes,

-'How good are your grades then?' She paused for a second. 'Or my brother's for that matter?'

As he put the eye back together with a practiced move he pulled out a sheet of parchment from his backpack.

-'Pretty much straight O's the whole way since I added that setting.' He pointed to the last option on the prediction dial.

Everyone in the common room turned at the peals of laughter coming of the both of them.

* * *

Christmas spirit was definitely thin on the ground in the Gryffindor common room that morning. Hermione had shut Crookshanks in her dormitory, but was furious with Ron for trying to kick him; Ron was still fuming about Crookshanks's fresh attempt to eat Scabbers. Harry gave up trying to make them talk to each other and devoted himself to examining the Firebolt, which he had brought down to the common room with him. For some reason this seemed to annoy Hermione as well; she didn't say anything, but she kept looking darkly at the broom as though it too had been criticizing her cat.

-'Harry?' She called out as Ron started playing with his presents.

The boy turned to her with a questioning look.

-'I got you this,' She handed him a big thin package. 'I figured it would come in handy for all of your experiments.'

Giving her a questioningly look he unwrapped the package in his hand.

The book was big, almost a foot tall and at least an inch thick. The title was stylized across it.

-'The way things work?' He started flipping through the richly illustrated pages.

-'It's sort of an introduction text Harry,' She pointed out a cut out of a diesel engine. 'It shows how muggle mechanical things work and why they can only do what they do.' She turned to the details of a plane flying. 'I thought that maybe you could read through it and use it's principles for some of your enchanted items, there are a lot of good ideas in here as well as some challenges that engineers run into because they don't have magical means of cooling down the engines for example,' She pointed to a jet turbine. 'Or they're limited by the amount of fuel they can carry.'

The-Boy-Who-Lived continued flipping through the book. What his friend had said made a lot of sense, he had started running out of ideas that could be powered by the magic of a 13 year old. Maybe this was the key to something new and interesting.

And with a little luck, he mused, one of those could help him defeat Sirius Black if he ever came a-knocking again.

-'Thank you very much Hermione,' He smiled hugely at her. 'This is the most practical gift I have ever received in my life. I love it.'

* * *

-'Harry I need help.'

It was Ginny who responded to her brother's anxious tones.

-'Yes you do Ron but we don't have the kind you need at Hogwarts.'

He whacked her on the back of the head before responding.

-'Har de har har, very funny. Now will you please take this seriously, I lost a table.'

There was a pregnant pause as his friends stared first at him then each other. It gave birth to a host of other little pauses as every single one of them try to imagine what they could have possibly misheard that would sound like Ron had lost a whole table.

Nope, they had heard him right.

-'Ron mate, did you just say you lost a table?'

At his friends frantic nod he continued.

-'Fair enough, you want to explain how?' Hermione chimed in.

-'Ok remember how I was working on that concealment charm to improve the disillusionment charm?' As Harry nodded Ginny stared.

She had heard of those charms but they were at least 5th year level.

-'Ok, I thought that maybe there was a better alternative, you know how we always wondered if say Mrs. Norris could smell us or if the overgrown bat could hear it if we dropped something right?' All three nodded at this. 'Well I figured a notice me not charm might be the answer.'

Hermione dropped her face in the palm of her hand as the penny dropped.

Harry raised an eyebrow at her reaction but still looked at Ron expectantly.

-'Ok, and...?'

-'Well I designed this hat to work as a notice me not against wizards and would you know it, notice me nots are very complex but take almost no energy so somewhere like say, purely for example, the Gryffindor common room, if you don't put a damper rune right after the siphoning rune it would theoretically activate itself and self sustain for who knows how long.'

As Ginny's face followed Hermione's into her own palm Harry narrowed his eyes.

-'And if, say, purely as a thought experiment, some nitwit were to have put down said hat on an inanimate object, it would envelope that object and in a place like Hogwarts that is rife with magic you could say good bye to it.'

Ron looked crestfallen as he nodded.

Harry's face joined the girls.

* * *

Ron and Hermione were arguing once again as they passed through the portrait hole.

They both stopped as they saw the hubbub in front of them.

-'What's going on?' Hermione was the first to ask.

Colin responded from somewhere in the middle of the melee.

-'It's Harry Hermione, he seems to be passed out and we can't get him up.'

It took only a few seconds of shoving for both friends to make it to the middle.

-'Did anybody see what happened?' Ron was looking his friend over as he asked.

-'Parvati says she saw it happen but it's a bit strange, even for what you guys have been getting up to lately.' Colin looked pointedly at the necklace dangling from both their open robes.

Hermione glared his way before shoving hers back in.

-'What did you see Parvati?' She looked up at the girl.

-'Well he'd been working on this big bracer for most of the evening so when he finally finished I was curious to see what it did, remember those ice skates, or Diagon alley, I was hoping it would be something like that, but when he activated it it just went strange.' She bit her lip as she tried to think of the best way to explain it. 'He clicked it into place and pushed the rune at the end of the, …, you know, the wrist plate, anyway, it glowed and all of a sudden,' She rubbed her arms nervously at the intense look from Hermione. 'It's like the air thickened, I could feel everything slowing down and it got a little harder to move, you know like it does when you're under water or something,' At the girls encouraging nod she carried on. 'This big sphere started to expand from him, it was sort of blue and yellow with lighting through it,' Ron was surprised to see Colin nod in agreement to this but wisely did not interrupt. 'It grew and grew, I was about to turn away when it touched me and all of a sudden it was gone and harry was on the floor, sorry.'

-'It's not your fault, he probably forgot a controlling rune or something,' Ron nodded to the unconscious form. 'And he seems ok, just passed out,' He nodded to Colin. 'Now how do YOU know what that sphere looks like?'

It surprised him when Patricia piped up from behind him.

-'Actually that's because it's been happening about every minute,' She pointed to the arm band. 'it glows for about a second like she said and then goes out.'

Nodding in understanding Ron reached under and unlocked the arm band before slowly sliding it off his friend's arm.

He was satisfied when the activation rune stopped glowing.

They all waited patiently for about 30 sec before The-Boy-Who-Lived finally stirred and woke up.

-'Uh hey guys, what's up?'He asked as he sat up.

Sitting cross legged in front of him Ron brandished the arm band.

-'Care to explain?' This came from Hermione.

-'Oh that well,' He looked at the audience surrounding them. 'I was trying to make an acceleration device,' He saw the blank looks from every single person around him and carried on. 'It was supposed to make a person be faster at everything, I looked into how to do that and the simplest way I found was to slow down time.' He laughed at the look of disbelief in Hermione's face. 'Bear with me, it was the simplest in a runic scheme sense, I get that from a Muggle point of view it's a lot harder then that, anyway, that's what this thing does, it creates a field that slows down time and leaves the person wearing it unaffected.'

Hermione interrupted him.

-'And you didn't think that maybe there were billions and billions of light years of space and that there was no way any person on this planet would have enough magic to power this even for a single second.' She whacked him on the back of the head at his sheepish look.

-'Yes, I did sort of miss that part, hence the passing out I presume.'

-'Why did it shut down when it touched us then?' Parvati spoke up.

It surprised her when Percy of all people responded.

-'It didn't Parvati, it just shut down time for you until it ran out of energy so from your point of view no time had passed at all.'

Harry scratched the back of his head when Ron joined Hermione in smacking him.

-'Good thing you are still in third year, otherwise imagine how far you could have extended this thing, it could have covered almost all of the castle if you put it on someone like the headmaster!'

As they laughed together they were blissfully ignorant of a Muggle almost two hundred miles away that had seen the effects on a herd of cows he had been looking after but passed it off as simple fatigue.

* * *

-'Ok Harry we're good.' Hermione adjusted the cancellation rod she was holding.

He looked to his left to see Ron doing the same.

Taking a deep breath the dark haired boy touched the controlling rune on the heavy bracer.

Instantly the world slowed down to a crawl.

The-Boy-Who-Lived could see the minute movement of the canceling rod that Ron was holding as he prepared to hit himself with it.

Looking around he was amazed at the quality of the light, it appeared to be mostly reds and browns, he couldn't see any blue anywhere.

Harry tried to move and the very air reacted like molasses parting only with the greatest of efforts.

The boy slowly put one foot in front of the other when he realized that somebody had turned down gravity.

This would have been a minor matter if he had been taught the elementary physics involved in walking, unfortunately it had been learned by doing it rather then studying the theory like most biological creatures. So when Harry leaned forward to put his foot on the ground he was surprised at the time it took for it to actually hit the ground.

The rod had barely moved an inch, this meant that barely a tenth of a second had passed since he took his first step.

Harry walked over to the table and picked up one of the books. As he lifted it felt like it weighed nothing. He used two fingers to bring it off the table but when he let go it just hung there, drifting in the thick air.

Harry was wondering how reading would be in the poor light.

He pulled on the cover when it ripped in his hand.

It seemed like with time speeded up he touched everything very fast and paper shredded in his hand.

He tried to be a little gentler as he pulled on the first page,

The-Boy-Who-Was-About-To-Get-Beaten-Up-By-Hermione cringed as the paper ripped off the spine.

-'Good thing she didn't like that book.'

Harry tried turning a few more pages until he got the hang of reading without destroying the book.

-'Preliminary activation test successful, now let's move on to phase 2.'

The-Boy-Who-Lived reached and tapped the deactivation rune.

And stared up as nothing around him changed.

Harry frowned as he tapped the rune again.

Nothing.

-'Oh for the love of... of all the things to fail!'

He tapped his foot trying to think of what to do.

Ron and Hermione were startled to see their friend blur in front of them.

He looked like a hummingbird as he moved first towards them then away towards one of the tables.

They barely blinked when a sign had been drawn on the table and Harry had disappeared.

Both friends looked around stunned as the door exploded outwards.

Hermione took off towards it as Ron looked down at the sign.

It read :

The off switch is broken, I can't take it off while it's on so I'm going outside for a bit until it wears off, see you in about 2 minutes.

The redhead dropped the sign as he started running out.

He was all the way to the entrance hall when he saw the blur turn toward the library.

-'He just ran past me from outside.' Hermione panted.

-'I saw him go that way.' He pointed to the corridor.

Together they trotted down until they saw the big double doors.

It was a good thing this was a Sunday, there were only a few die hard Ravenclaws working at one of the tables and most of them barely glanced up at the blur that started going through books in the middle of the stacks, they had been at a magical school for almost 6 years now and they had certainly seen weirder things.

Hermione was staring at the books that were piling up on the table when the blur that was The-Boy-Who-Lived ran past her again.

Ron opened his mouth to make a comment when Harry came back and the books disappeared and some more stacked up.

This went on for almost a full minute, every 10 seconds The raven haired boy would go out the doors and come back before they could turn around to see where he went.

The last stack just disappeared when Harry fell out of the air at their feet.

-'What do you think happened?' Hermione was casting a levitation charm on her friend.

-'Oh, that's right you didn't read the note he wrote, it turns out the shunting rune was the one thing to fail of all things so he couldn't turn it off.' He gently removed the bracer from his friend.

* * *

Hermione walked in the empty classroom and shut the door behind her.

-'How are the tests going?'

As she spoke both boys turned around.

-'It's going great, your idea to use biological acceleration rather then temporal works a treat.' Harry said as he looked up from his notes.

Ron blurred as he ran to the far side of the room, up the wall and across the ceiling before coming down the other side and stopping in the exact same spot.

-'It's awesome, with the boost in speed it actually boosts strength almost 10 fold.' he bounced on the spot as he talked.

-'We have found one or two drawbacks though.' The-Boy-Who-Lived shut his note book as he stood up.

-'Hit me.' Hermione sat down on one of the desks.

-'First off and I think the most important is that your magic isn't accelerated, you can only casts spells at the same rate as without the acceleration,' As she opened her mouth to object he continued. 'You can say the words faster and you can do the gestures faster but for some reason the spells come out at the same rate as before.' He gestured for Ron to oblige.

Smiling, Ron pulled out his wand and blurred for almost 10 seconds.

Hermione heard a wall of sound as his wand made motions impossible to follow with the naked eye.

Despite all of this only 3 spells came out of his wand and changed the color of the table he had aimed at.

-'Out of curiosity how many spells did you try to cast?'

-'Maybe a hundred.' Ron shrugged.

Hermione gaped.

-'Yeah, your idea is actually great except for those issues.'

-'What's the other issue?' she made a motion for him to continue.

As Harry started to speak Ron blurred and disappeared out the door.

-'The second problem should have been obvious before we started but I guess I didn't realize what accelerating the metabolism would,' He paused as Ron reappeared with a sandwich about the size of his arm. 'Do to your appetite.'

-'Yeah, even I think I'm eating a lot.' The redhead commented as he brushed the last crumbs off his lap.

Hermione stared at him. The sandwich had disappeared so fast she couldn't honestly say it had been there for sure.

-'Well, it was worth a try anyway, plus it turns out there's plenty of other uses besides combat it can be put to.' Harry was putting all of his notes in his bag as Ron handed him the bracer.

As they walked out into the corridor Hermione spoke up again.

-'So was there any other drawback?'

-'Actually yes, it seems that the accelerated metabolism diminished the ability for critical thoughts, you became less and less mature the more you use it.'

Ron spoke up,

-'Uh, but I don't get it, I've been using it for three days and I don't fell any diff...' He looked at each of his friends in turn. 'oh, …, never mind.'

* * *

-'What's that Potter?'

The sneering tones came from his least favorite person in the world.

They had been studying in the great hall for once when he had laid down his latest invention.

Pointing to the open tome in front of him Ron responded.

-'This is a booook,' he used the slow deliberate tone for the hard of thinking. 'It has wooords in it, you reeeaaaad it and then you learn stuff but I guess we should try baby steps with you uh Malfoy?'

The blonds ears reddened.

-'I know what a book is Weasley, I meant this.' He snatched the silver strip of material from the desk.

He missed the knowing glance that the golden trio exchanged.

-'It's called duct tape Malfoy, it's used by muggles to seal things or just glue them together.'

Holding at arm's length at the mention of it's origin he continued.

-'Why's it got all of this writing on it?' He pointed with his other hand.

-'I was trying to make a truth spell but I missed the mark,' Harry spoke up. 'It was supposed to detect when someone told a lie, then it would wrap around their mouth to stop them from lying.'

-'Only it seems truth is a lot harder to define in ancient Egyptian than we thought, so now it works on sarcasm?'

Crabbe surprisingly pipped up at this?

-'Do you mean it wraps around the mouth of sarcastic people?'

-'Essentially yes, although it only does it when they're actually being sarcastic.' Harry answered the taller boy

-'Yeah ri...MMMMMPPPPHHHHHHHHH.'

-'Oh and it activates when you touch it,' He grinned at the distraught blond trying to get a grip on the slippery piece of plastic tightly wrapped around his head and over his mouth.

* * *

-'Potter!'

The hissing anger in the potion master's voice could clearly be heard as he shouted down the corridor.

Turning around Harry just glared balefully.

-'What did you do to Mr Malfoy Potter?'

Sighing he took down his backpack and pulled out the magical duct tape.

There were still some blond hair attached where it had peeled them off the boy's scalp when Goyle finally decided to resort to brute strength to get it off.

-'This sir.'

Snatching it unceremoniously from his hand Severus kept glaring at him.

-'And what is "this" Potter?'

With a sort of modulated sigh of long suffering patience Harry launched into the explanation.

-'I was trying to make a truth spell sir, it was supposed to wrap around the mouth of anyone telling a lie.'

-'And obviously you fumbled it up I have no doubt, now what does it DO.'

-'It does that sir only it does it when people are sarcastic rather then lying.'

-'Like I'm going to belie... MMPPPPHHHMMMPPHH!'

The next day.

-'Mr Potter, may I have a word?'

Harry looked at Hermione and sighed.

Before anything else could be said he took the duct tape out of his back pack and held it up for the headmaster.

It had long greasy black hair as well as blonde ones attached now.

-'May I ask what you did to Messieurs Snape and Malfoy?' He said this as he took the proffered duct tape.

This was going to be a long conversation.


	4. Chapter 4

-'Dammit, what's happening?'

Dudley was getting angry. He had come to this party to chat up some bird and maybe get a happy night and nothing was happening.

He had tried every line in that book his mate had given and nothing.

Not even laughing at him and that was the scary part.

He had tried chatting up that cute redhead by the DJ earlier.

He'd sidled over to her and given her that line about her being tired because she had been running through his mind all night. He was sure it was going to work but nothing. She had stared at him as he taped her on the shoulder, she had looked him in the eye as he smoothly gave his line and then when he stopped speaking she just turned around like he had never spoken and resumed talking with the blonde standing on the other side.

He had figured it was a one time thing, she just had no sense of humor or something and he'd just gone to the next one.

He saw this pretty bird standing by the drinks table all by herself.

He walked up to her trying to show his muscles. As he got to her he started giving her the I got lost in your eyes. She had turned to him when he tapped her shoulder but just like the other, the moment he stopped talking she just turned back like he had never been there.

What in the blazes was going on?

-'Hey, I don't think we've met.'

He turned around to see a plump brunette extending a hand.

-'Uh? Oh yeah, uh no, I'm Dudley.' He took her hand and shook it.

She was ok looking but with all the other hot girls here he wasn't going to waste his time.

-'I don't think I've seen you at school are you not from around here? I'm Megan by the way.'

The young man was taken aback by that line of question.

-'Uh, no I go to Smeltings, I'm from Surrey.'

-'Smeltings? Never heard of it. Why not Hogwarts?' She took a sip from her drink.

-'Hogwarts?' He stared at her. How could she know the barmy school his cousin went to. 'How do you know about Hogwarts?'

She narrowed her eyes as she starred.

-'I go there, I'm a 6th year.'

-'Uh you're one of those fr..' He petered off as she glared openly. 'You're a W... you know?'

-'Yes, yes I am Dudley,' She injected as mush sarcasm as she could in his name. 'And since you don't go there and you're not a W..., can you tell me why you're wearing a magical belt?'

-'Uh?' he stared down at his belt. 'What d'you mean magical belt?' he gripped the buckle and pulled on it a little. 't'snot magical, it's just a belt I pinched from my cousins room.'

She laughed out loud at this.

-'I know that for you it might be usual to strike out this much but you must have been wondering why this time they didn't just laugh openly at you afterwards, no?'

Some of what she said he couldn't understand but it was sinking in that maybe she was right and this was a magical belt.

-'What you mean that this belt makes it so that girls don't notice me when I try to chat'em up?'

She laughed louder then ever at this.

-'No you blubbering fool, it looks like it's designed so that stupid muggles like you ignore the person wearing it.'

His brow furrowed as he tried to process this.

He came to the logical conclusion that this was a stupid prank from his cousin and he had to pay for this.

Unfortunately his ride ignored him every time he stopped talking so in the end he just took off on foot towards his house.

It took him two hours to get home. None of the taxi's would stop for him no matter how hard he tried to signal them.

He finally got to the front and he would have stormed through and up the stairs if he had the energy left.

He did not notice his parents look up briefly as the door banged shut behind him and look back down to their respective magazines.

He trudged up the stairs to his cousins room and banged on the door until it opened.

-'You did this to me!'

Harry looked at him with a completely blank expression. He was used to his family going bonkers from time to time but usually they had a reason for it. This particular tantrum seemed to be coming out of the blue.

-'What are you on about Dudders?'

Tugging the belt out of his pants he thrust it at his cousin.

-'This you freak, you made me wear this at the party so all the birds would ignore me.'

Looking at the belt he recognized his latest experiment.

It was supposed to be a limited notice me not field keyed to muggles. The twist was that the studs along the belt were tiny magical batteries so that there was no repeat of the table incident. The siphoning runes charged the batteries and the spell pulled on the batteries so there was no risk of surcharge.

Obviously it also worked for muggles, at least for a time as demonstrated by his fool of a cousin.

-'Do you mind if I take a look?' He took the proffered belt.

When Dudley glared at him even harder he touched the activation rune and watched the glazed look pass over his cousin's eyes. When the fool shook his head and stepped out into the corridor wondering where he was Harry smiled and closed the door quietly.

* * *

September was well into its third week when the screams of panic rang out.

It had been a thundery afternoon so most of the school population was indoor.

Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny and the twins were sitting in the great hall doing their homework.

-'Someone just got struck by lightning!'

-'Harry just called down lightning on himself!'

The sound had barely finished reverberating to the end of the hall when all 6 of them exploded out of the doors.

The mad dash was led by Ginny. Followed closely by Hermione and the twins. Neville and Ron were bringing the rear.

As they shot through the doors out of the castle another bright light cut the sky.

The thunder almost blew them off their feet.

It had been close enough that all of those that had been caught with both feet on the ground felt the surge circuit their legs.

What stopped Ginny open mouthed was Harry Laughing at the point where the lightning struck.

Hermione ran another couple of feet before she too stopped.

Harry was standing in the middle of a widening circle of burnt grass.

He was wearing what looked like a silver muggle raincoat with the hood up.

In his hands he once again raised the strange bottle he was carrying.

It was a big jug almost 6 inches across at the bottom with a spoon sticking out of the lid and a thin cable running from it to the ground.

Standing on tip toes Harry raised the jar in one hand and screamed something at the dark sky above him.

As if accepting the challenge the clouds responded with another thunderbolt.

The afterimage burned in her retinas Hermione closed her eyes.

-'What the hell?' George had just recovered from the brief shock to see the next bolt hit the boy standing in the rain.

-'My thought exactly.' Fred replied. 'Is he calling lightning to him?'

-'But that's impossible!' Neville answered breathlessly. 'No one can control thunder and lightning, not even the most powerful mages. Even Merlin couldn't do that.'

As to prove him wrong another flash of light temporarily blinded them as the tingle ran up their legs.

When they opened their eyes again The-Boy-Who-Visibly-Could-Survive-Anything was running towards them with a smile across his face.

-'Hey guys. What are you doing out here?'

The smile and the casual attitude seemed to temporarily shut down the speech capability of most of them.

-'Bloody Hell Harry! What were you doing out here?'

Harry looked at his friend with mild surprise.

He pulled out the bottle from the bag he had put it in.

Everyone had to shield their eyes from the flare of light coming out of the now open bag.

-'I was catching lightning of course.'

Putting the jar back in its thick bag he looked back at his openly gaping friends.

-'Harry James Potter! Explain to me right now what went through your head when you decided to walk out in a thunderstorm and "Catch lightning".' Ginny channeled her mother for a moment as she glared at the discomfit boy.

-'Well I got this book for Christmas last year, and it talks about a bunch of mechanical things,' He nodded at Hermione. 'But some of the electrical stuff need more juice then I can produce with a spell.' He tapped the jar in its bag. 'So I figured it would be easier to catch some free flowing electricity and store it for when I need it.'

-'But how did you survive it?' Neville was staring at the rain jacket and weird looking boots on the dark haired boys feet.

-'Oh that's easy,' He opened the flap of his coat. 'I used a lightning spell and I enchanted each strand with it so when the jacket was woven no matter what happens lightning can't get through it.' He lifted a foot so they could see the sole. 'My boots have pretty much the same thing only more so, so that nothing can come up them at all.'

The twins gently rubbed the coat material between their fingers.

-'This is …'

-'...Amazing Harry.'

-'And the jar young man?' Ginny was trying to calm down from the mild heart attacks she had just received.

-'Oh that was the easiest. Unbreakable charm on the bottle itself and one way coating on the spoon so that lightning goes in but can't come out.' He pulled out a small test tube full of a white gas. 'This is vaporized magnesium oxide. It was the best I could find to hold the charge.'

Hermione and the twins nodded in understanding at this while the others only gaped at the unfamiliar names.

-'Now all I need to do is invent something that uses electricity and then invent a way of extracting the lightning a bit at a time rather then all 5 strikes at once.

* * *

-'You know the irony?'

Harry asked Hermione as he watched the owl swoop with his message to Sirius.

-'No Harry what was it?'

-'I was working on a way to do exactly that.' He pulled out a small beetle out of his robe pocket.

-'What is that?' Hermione took the little blue insect in her hand.

It was surprisingly light with a metallic sheen to its tiny shell.

Without answering Harry took out his wand and a piece of paper.

Catching her eye he extended his hand with the paper in it and tapped the beetle with his wand.

The beetle without making a sound rose from her hand.

It floated gently to Harry's hand and grasped the piece of paper between tiny feet and gained altitude.

With a flick of his wand the boy sent it hovering to the far end of the owlery where with another flick he had it drop the piece of paper into a small waste basket.

-'I didn't want to use it because I agreed with you, the tournament is WAY too dangerous for someone our age.'

He recalled the beetle and put it back in his pocket.

-'Oh well at least you can give it to someone for Christmas.' Hermione smiled.

* * *

-'I got it, I got it!'

The exclamation surprised Harry and Hermione as they relaxed by the lake.

Turning around they saw run running towards them with his hand in the air.

Since they had reconciled after the first task Harry had been trying to be more indulgent of his friends excesses but running to them like this was weird even for him.

-'What have you got Ron?' Hermione questioned as he got within non shouting earshot.

-'This!' The red haired boy pulled a ring of his finger.

It was a ring made of some copper like substance with 4 amber stones all around the rim. It was attached to a bronze bracelet by a metallic chain. The bracelet had thin glass tubes running around it that were full of a white gas.

-'Is that lightning?' Harry pointed to the bracelet.

-'What? Uh yeah. I took some of the lightning you gave me to power it.' Ron pointed to the ring. 'It takes a lot of power to turn on and almost none to maintain.' he grinned as he proffered the contraption towards his friends.

-'And what does it actually do Ron?' Hermione handled the item carefully.

-'It's a wand holder!' Ron grinned as he said this.

Both of them stared at the complicated piece of jewelry before turning back to their friend.

-'How does it work?'

Taking it back Ron started explaining.

-'It's easy! First you take your wand out,' He manipulated the ring for a second and it grew to about twice it's size. He tapped it gently and his wand came out. 'And you push it into the ring handle first like this.' He demonstrated this slowly. 'Then you put the ring on your finger and the bracelet on your wrist.'

As he did this Harry stared at the diminutive ring. The wand had disappeared in it like a conjurer's trick.

Ron put the ring on and Hermione gasped as his finger disappeared too.

-'Uh mate, you just lost your finger.' Harry was trying to stay calm as he stared at the object.

-'Uh?' He looked up at his friend as he finished attaching the bracelet. 'Oh that no worries.' He tapped the bracelet once and a new finger started growing out of the ring as if it was slowly being put on. 'See all good now.'

Hermione tried to calm the fear that was poking out at seeing her friend's finger do it's disappearing act.

-'And what about your wand?'

Ron grinned like a maniac.

-'That's the clever bit!' With his thumb he touched the underside of the ring.

With a slight metallic tic his finger retracted back into the ring and the tip of his wand extended almost 10 inches from his knuckle.

-'It's not practical for swish and flick stuff but for point and shoot it is amazing. Plus the bonus is you can't be disarmed.' He beamed proudly at Harry and Hermione's astonished faces.

* * *

Hermione was opening the door to the common room when the heavy sound of splintering timber almost knocked her back.

She stared with open mouth as a table sailed in front of her and crashed against the other side of the room.

Harry and Ron were fighting.

That in itself was not amazingly surprising after the events of the goblet but this was a little more then usual.

She watched fascinated as Ron casually swung what must be a full sized claymore at his best friend.

The sparks that flew off the air a few inches from Harry's upraised arms surprised her.

Not half as much as the upwards flight.

The raven haired boy was thrown upwards like a rag doll.

She was about to open her mouth when she saw him twist in the air and push against the ceiling to slow his ascent.

Putting his hands together he conjured a beam of light that flashed instantly towards Ron.

A bat of the sword deflected the beam of light towards the fireplace and Hermione had to shield herself from stone debris ricocheting all over the place.

Both boys kicked off and slammed with a resounding shock wave that pushed what little sticks of furniture were left towards the walls.

Purple and green and red sparks showered the floor as they were bounced away from each other.

With a flourish of his hand Ron vanished the sword and conjured what looked like a small cannon above his left shoulder.

Harry grinned wider and with a gesture 3 small dragons appeared in front of him.

The first cannon blast ripped through the middle dragon and went on to drill a significant hole where Harry had been.

The young boy was no longer there.

He had immediately pushed off from his vertical perch and bounced from the ceiling to the ground and back up to where his friend was taking aim on another one of the fast approaching creatures.

Standing on the wall like it was another floor he grabbed Ron's leg and started spinning him around faster and faster.

With a blur of movement he twisted his spin towards the ceiling and let go.

Ron left a trail of sparks falling to the ground as he dug a trench half the length of the room before impacting with the wall on the other side.

Still upside down he fell towards the ground.

Hermione actually screamed when she heard the loud crack as he impacted bonelessly with the stone floor.

She was surprised to see her friend push himself up and look towards her.

-'Oh hi Hermione.' He stayed kneeling as he smiled in her direction.

-'Hey Mione, you finished your homework?' Harry had jumped the 90 some odd feet separating the walls and was helping Ron to his feet.

She could feel the horror bubbling up as she stared at the utter destruction around them.

The room was behind trashed.

Every single piece of wood that had been there was now in splinters along the walls.

The walls themselves had huge gaping holes where whatever fireworks they had thrown at each other had taken their toll.

Most of the fireplaces were in rubbles, blocked up by wood debris and fallen masonry.

She was too shocked to even acknowledge that the fight itself could not possibly have been accomplished by boys as young as they were. She doubted Voldemort or Dumbledore could have done this in their prime.

-'Hermione?'

-'Mione, you ok?'

They were walking slowly towards her as she gaped open mouthed at the remnants of their sparing match.

-'OH MY GODS! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?' She bellowed the fury that was boiling over into her lungs. 'YOU DESTROYED THE COMMON ROOM!' She was glad to hear that her voice was not trembling despite the hysterics she was having.

-'Wait Hermione, you don't have all the facts.' Ron held his hands up as he backed slowly away.

-'What. Possible. Facts. Could. Explain. THIS. Ronald Bilious Weasley!'

-'He's right Hermione, this is just my latest invention, the room is fine.'

She let her bag drop to the floor as she looked into Harry's eyes.

-'First I need to sit down, next I need an explanation!'

With a gesture Harry summoned the box to him. He manipulated the heavy dial on the top for a minute before putting it down.

The room seemed to shrink around them. No this was not right. The room stayed the same size but the damage and destruction seemed to take on a two dimensional quality before shrinking.

She gasped when she saw people appearing where the furniture used to be.

She was even more shocked when the furniture itself appeared completely unharmed where the students were.

When the damaged room finally shrunk back into the box she stared at it with undisguised awe.

-'Come on Hermione I'll show you how it works.' harry tugged her towards an empty table.

As they sat down he put the box in front of her and started dismantling it.

The box seemed to be made of an aluminum like substance and was covered in runes.

When he opened it she saw the amber stones lining the inside.

Then the tiny sphere in the middle caught her eye.

It was another lightning jar she was sure of it. It swirled with energy and gave off a faint glow.

-'Is this the power source?'

-'Yes, I use lightning for almost all of it so we have to change the sphere every other time we use it.'

-'What the sphere does,' Ron cut in. 'Is to create a pocket dimension exactly the size of the room and three feet more in every direction.'

-'And then it makes a sort of soft matter copy of everything in the room that's not currently alive.'

-'Since it's an alternate dimension the rules are slightly different, rules like gravity.'

-'Yup, that and magic is much more powerful since it's mostly a mind construct.' Harry pointed to the three strands of hair in a tiny vial at the bottom. 'It's designed so that only the people keyed to it can go in and out and since you weren't there when we built it but I figured I'd include you anyway.'

She smiled at him for the thought but the sheer complexity of what they had built overwhelmed her.

She had given that book to Harry last year mostly to give him a little more mundane ideas. What she had not expected was lightning in a jar or cross dimensional portals.

-'So how much magic does it actually drain?'

It was Ron that answered excitedly.

-'Almost none, the battle that you saw took us about as much energy as a practical charms class.'

She smiled at her friends renewed enthusiasm.

-'Can I try?'

* * *

Hermione was sitting on the pontoon when Ron walked up to her.

-'What are you doing?'

She turned and smiled.

-'I'm waiting for Harry?'

-'Why would you wait for him here? You'd think after last week the lake would be the last place he'd want to be.'

-'Ronald, have you ever heard the saying that every general is ready to fight the last battle and do it right this time?'

-'Uh, no.' The red head boy looked puzzled at this question.

-'Well it's a reasonably famous saying. The reason I ask is because Harry has been in that kind of mood since he failed to prepare for the task last week.'

Still not getting the point the boy sat down beside her.

-'So why is he coming here? To learn to swim?'

-'No, something else.'

As she said this a dark form seemed to blur a few feet in front of them before a blast of water exploded upwards.

Ron barely had time to put his arms up as he was drenched.

He caught a glimpse of a dark green form passing overhead and landing behind them with a thud.

Scrabbling to his feet he turned to see what had just done this.

The monster was dark green, it's skin a thick leather. As it stared at them the blood red gills on the grotesque face opened and closed slowly. It had two great black voids the size of Ron's palm where it's eyes should be. The elongated arms were connected to its body by green translucent webbings and as The boy watched it started reaching towards them with its clawed appendages.

-'So, how did it go?' Hermione stood beside him unsurprised and dry.

Ron gaped at her as she addressed the creature standing in front of them.

It was the flash of light that brought his attention back to it.

He could see it's face coming off and as it did it's flesh flashed brightly before turning into a more normal looking pink. The transformation progressed swiftly from head to toe and by the time the face had come off completely a wet Harry in his swimming trunks was smiling at Hermione.

-'It went AMAZING.' He handed her the mask he had been wearing and took the proffered towel. 'It's even better then what I thought.' He started drying himself off. 'The construct works exactly to specs and with the tweaks you suggested it consumes very little magic to do it.' he turned to his soaked friend. 'Hey Ron, so, what did you think?'

-'What the hell just happened?' Ron stared open mouthed at his friend.

-'It was my idea Ron,' Hermione piped up. 'I thought that he could have something that did what gillyweed did without the obvious restrictions.' She showed him the mask in her hands.

It was a piece of leather overlaid under a thick metal plate. It was inscribed with quite a few runes in Mayan and Ron was trying decipher them when Harry finished putting his robes back on.

-'Basically it creates a second skin over the wearers,' He pointed to a tight cluster of runes on the top of the mask. 'And then it adds the gills,' He pointed to the set around the mouth of the mask. 'And the fins was a last minute thing by Hermione.'

-'How long does it last?' Ron was tracing the detailed carvings on the inside of the artifact.

-'I was under for about 2 hours and I don't even feel tired.'

Hermione piped up.

-'If my math is right, and it always is, 4 hours.'

-'Let me get my swimsuit and then can I have a go?'

Hermione handed him the mask with a smile.

* * *

Hermione had walked to the other side of the castle because she had seen the trees shake from the window.

Because this was on the opposite side from the lake almost no one ever came out here.

This was a good thing because if they had they would have seen this.

This was Harry using a tree as a baseball bat.

Not some sapling but a tree roughly as thick around his upper arm and almost 20 ft long.

This would have been normally impossible for him to put his hands around it but he seemed to have carved it out at this end to taper so he could grip it.

She watched from the top of the hill as he took a few experimental swings then squared off.

She actually gasped when she saw the boulder lift in the air.

It was at least 200ft from Harry and was twice as tall as her from the looks of it.

From this distance she could see a small pair of feet protruding below the stone.

When movement came it was slow enough to feel a little surreal.

The stone did not describe an arc but flew straight at her dark haired friend.

She noted absentmindedly that it had been Ron below the rock.

He stood in a two handed throw pose as he watched the trajectory of the boulder.

Her jaw dropped as the boulder flew a little to the right of Harry.

When she saw the swing begin she put her hands to her ears in preparation for the thunderclap that was sure to come.

The tree split into shards as it hit and the splinters seemed to fly every which way.

The boulder stopped in it's track and it seemed to, just as slowly, fly back along the way it came.

The terrifying boom failed to materialize as the stone flew along a graceful arc.

If her jaw had not already been on the floor it would have been at the sight that followed.

The rock's arc took it almost three feet above Ron. Rather then let it fly he casually jumped up and seemed to grab the bottom.

With a twist of his arm he changed its trajectory to impact with the ground only a few feet behind him.

Both her friends looked at each other and started talking.

She could see their mouths moving but no sounds came to her ears.

Silencing charms.

That would explain it.

Very carefully she picked her way to the bottom of the hill.

She tried to make herself as visible as possible so that she wouldn't catch a stray boulder being casually thrown by her friends.

Her steps actually faltered when she realized the enormity of the thought she just had.

She was 50 ft from them when the sound of their conversation reached her ears.

-'So what we need to do next is see if maybe an imperturbable charm on the tree helps, Hey Hermione.'

-'Hey guys, can I ask what the two of you are up to?' She indicated the now repaired tree trunk that Harry had swung over his shoulder.

-'It's my new invention Hermione.' Ron casually tossed the boulder that was twice his size as he made his way to her. 'Those are gloves of giant strength.'

She could see now that both her friends were wearing gloves that were at least 3 sizes too big for them.

Each gloves had a huge green stone on the back and thick metal plates along each finger.

As she watched Ron's gloved flared with each toss of the stone in his hand.

Harry set the tree in front of him in a good position to serve as a bench.

Casually he sat down and started taking off the gloves.

-'It was actually super difficult to make.' He pointed to the plates. 'Those had to be aluminum to survive the power going through them.'

-'How much power are we talking about here?' Hermione looked curiously at the boulder as it arced away from them.

-'Weeeelll...' Ron was looking away as he started answering. 'Here's the trick, Harry and I started noticing that our old stuff was lasting a lot longer.'

-'Not just a few hours longer, Days.' Harry chimed in.

-'So we figured there might be something going on with wearing enchanted items all the time.'

-'So Ron thought that a good way to test would be to use the equations in "The way things work" and calculate how much magical energy we could dish out.' He pulled out a piece of parchment form his robe.

-'Harry did the actual math but the idea was that we would make something that relied entirely on magic and see how much physical power it could dish out in muggle terms.'

-'So the gloves do what? Make magical energy into physical strength?' Hermione was going through the few equations on the parchment.

-'No actually, I took your swimsuit idea and made a magic weave out of it. It's invisible to the naked eye but what it does is lay across the skin and try to move away from their skin.'

Hermione looked up with brows furrowed.

-'What he's trying to say is that it works by negative feedback with your entire body as a sensor.' Harry tried to explain.

Looking at him she tilted her head trying to understand.

-'If I lift my finger I push on the inside of the field, so the field tries to stay a very specific distance from my skin,' He pushed his finger into the tree to illustrate his point. 'Because it cannot push back against my skin it pushes away from what's above my skin.'

-'I think get the principle.' She looked down at the parchment. 'So how much energy?'

-'The total is at the bottom.' Harry mumbled.

-'All I see here is 1.21GW is that it?' She pointed to the total.

-'Yup 1.21 gigawatts, but that's just Harry, we hadn't finished measuring mine.'


	5. Chapter 5

-'What in bloody hell happened here?' Vernon was screaming as he walked into the living room of privet drive.

Petunia gasped when she saw the destruction.

Her coffee table had a long dark furrow of burnt wood. The fancy couch she had gotten last year was now nothing but a metal frame and ashes. The smoke from all the fires had obviously been let out through the smashed window frame but not before it had time to blacken the entire ceiling and her expensive crystal chandelier.

-'What happened to the door to the garden?' Dudley was staring down the corridor at the two halves of the door leading into his mother's prized flowers.

-'BOY!' Vernon bellowed. 'Did YOU do this?'

-'Uh, …, yeah I did but I sorta need to fix this here first before I can do the rest of the house uncle Vernon.'

With a roar like an angry bull Vernon raced down the corridor and out into the garden.

Of course he had been expecting his nephew using his unnaturalness but this was not it.

In the middle of the a dark circle of ash stood his nephew, looking about 8ft tall with glowing red eyes.

In his hand was what looked like a claymore covered in flames that dripped continuously to his feet, slowly widening the circle of ashes around him like it was opening a portal to hell.

When the boy turned to him Vernon actually fainted.

It was Dudley who caught him before his head could hit the concrete.

-'Holy S...,' He stared at the younger boy. 'What did you do Harry?'

He had barely laid his father down when a shriek behind him announced his mother fainting almost right where he stood.

-'Well I was trying to make a flaming sword.' Harry had to pause at the "Duh" look his cousin gave him. 'I figured it would be easy but I didn't realize that I was going about it wrong.'

-'Looks ok to me,' He stared into the house. 'I'm sure the couch and the freaking coffee table would corroborate if you made them speak.'

-'Right except that the way I went about it was to make a sword and then have it conjure oil and set fire to that.'

-'Too much oil so it started dripping?'

-'Exactly,' He pointed to a rune on the handle. 'I finished carving that one and it just blazed on the coffee table, I tried to erase the rune but it set fire to the couch while I was looking for the chisel.' He pointed to the window. 'I threw it outside but it set fire to the grass so I rushed out to hold it up and then you guys arrived.'

-'You're going to die anyway but is there anything I can do to turn it off?' Dudley was staring at his mother and father laying on the ground.

-'Actually there is.' Harry smiled. 'You could go get my chisel in the living room and then just hack this rune right here.' He pointed to the conjuration rune near the handle. 'Then it'll run out and I can fix all this.'

-'Be right back!' Dudley rushed back into the house.

It was only 10 seconds before he stepped back out and with extreme caution chiseled across the strange rune on the sword.

-'Well that's one taken care of now you only have about 30 secs after they wake up I reckon,' He stared at the sword as the last flame died out. 'If you run now I'll try to hold them back and give you a bit of a head start but I can't promise much.'

-'No need for that I've got just the thing.' He put the sword in his cousin's hands and rushed into the house.

It took him only about 30 seconds to run into the living room and use his reparations bracelet.

4 quick spells later and the living room looked as good as new.

Rushing back out he stabbed a short rod all the way into the ground.

Dudley was eyeing his father warily when he realized that the grass under his feet was growing.

In a circle 10ft across the black stumps were being replaced by the healthy plants, growing like a stop motion movie.

When the black grass was completely healed Harry pulled the rod out and put it back in his pocket.

Out of another pocket he pulled out a fingerless glove with a strange set of runes on the back.

-'What does that one do?' Dudley was still in awe at the speed with which magic had literally made the entire house better then it was when they bought the furniture.

-'Oh this one is the real kicker, I build it at the end of last year but I never had a reason to use it.' He knelt down and with his gloved hand brushed his Uncle and Aunt's forehead. 'It erases things.' He stood up and walked to his cousin.

-'What things?' Dudley looked at the glove with apprehension.

Taking the sword with his ungloved hand Harry answered.

-'Memories.' He passed his hand across his cousin's forehead.

* * *

The dust around them had not moved for millennia.

The last meteor strike had left this mile wide crater and no wind was ever felt here to disturb it.

Two puffs flew up when his knees hit the ground.

He had been stripped and bound before being brought to her.

She stood calmly with her back to him.

He could see her staring at the blue orb so far in the distance.

It was so small that you could barely make out the continents but for the black scars that she had wrought across the smooth surface.

As the black scars started expanding slowly she turned to him.

Her brown hair floated in the low gravity but her calculated movement stopped them from actually obstructing her face.

She looked perfect in the bright light under the black sky.

She had started wearing those shimmering fabrics soon after it started.

She had made this one into a skin tight suit that complemented the woman she had become.

-'Hello Harry.' Her voice was calm. She had lost that slight trace of nervousness when she cursed Nagini into ashes.

-'Mmmmmh.'

-'Yes I know,' She walked slowly towards him. 'You really shouldn't have bothered making the trip.'

She put her hand on his bare shoulder as she passed behind him.

-'After all it's a big big hop just to say hello to an old friend.'

-'Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmh.'

-'What's that Harry?' She pushed her fingers through his hair and turned his head towards the black and red orb hanging in the sky. 'You think it was the least you could do after I killed Voldemort and every single death eater for you?' She leaned forward and put her lips against his ears. 'There was no need, I already knew how grateful you must be.'

In front of them the red lights on the orb flared and died. As they stared the blue was slowly taken over by gray clouds rolling from the partially vaporized oceans.

As the tears started rolling down his cheeks he felt her finger brush against it.

-'Don't cry Harry, it's better this way.' She gestured toward what remained of the earth. 'We can rebuild it, better, more efficient.'

As he glared at her she gestured with her other hand.

He felt the cold pressure of digits manipulating his gag.

When it was removed he gave into the grief he felt.

-'Now tell me why you're crying.'

-'You just killed every single person on the planet Hermione.' He screamed through the sobs.

-'Yes Harry, I did.' She put the finger with his tear to her lips. 'After what they did to you and me, can you really defend their existence?'

-'You killed every little innocent kid that breathed down there because the crazies at the ministry hurt you?'

-'Not just me Harry, you know as well as I do that they passed those laws so they could turn me into a brood mare for their pure blood agendas.' She slashed the air with her hand. 'They wanted to take away my mind, ME,' she stopped for a second. 'So they could continue their illusion that the world was ruled by inbreeding.'

-'By the gods Hermione, you killed little kids in Africa who had never even heard of magic.' He put a foot on the ground to stand up when he felt the cold grip on his shoulder.

-'That's right.' She glared into his eyes. 'I made them all pay for their fundamentally flawed nature.'

-'What happened to you?' He closed his eyes to avoid the chips of ice that had become her friends soul. 'When did you turn from a nice girl who helped us do homework to this?' He said the last word with the weight that someone else would have used for "Child molester".

-'I'm sure you remember that day,' She smiled darkly. 'It was October during our fifth year, Her toadiness had decided to influence yet more of the school.'

He stared at her. He had expected the difficulties they had had during their sixth and seventh year but the fifth year was merely the start.

-'I finished the device to prove to Luna that her stupid creatures were the stuff of fantasy.'

-'But it worked.' He protested.

-'Yes. It did.' She stared at the scar on the back of her hand. 'It brought forth a crumple horned snorkack and proved to the world that Looney wasn't so crazy after all.' Her voiced softened. 'Do you remember what happened after that?'

-'Of course I do. Humbitch confiscated it and had you writing lines.'

-'That's right, she made me cut my own hand open until I told her how it worked.' She looked up at the black void of space. 'And when I finally broke down and explained that it was a wish machine she used it.' She whisper the last few words.

-'Sirius?' He stared at her upturned features.

-'Sirius was only the third Harry, My parents were the first two.' She suddenly glared at the earth. 'She showed me the nature of humanity, when you give them everything they want the first thing they do with it is hurt everyone around them!'

-'Oh gods,' A fresh tear fell as he realized why his best friend had never spoken of their disappearance. 'Why didn't you tell us?'

-'What good would it have done? I had just handed over the most powerful enchantment in the world to a woman that showed her true nature, you would have blamed me at least as hard as I blamed myself.'

-'So everything changed when you used that machine?'

She glared at him.

-'No Harry, everything changed when I got the idea, sometime in September, the 15th I think.' She pointed to the earth where her machine was probably a small puddle of molten metal. 'I had the inspiration when I came out of the showers.'

He looked at her with wide eyes.

-'My clothes had fallen in a pattern that looked like the Norse rune for giving.' She stopped as he continued starring. 'It's complicated Harry but if you really must know this was it.'

-'The 15th of September? In the morning? Around 0700?'

She glared suspiciously at him.

-'I didn't have my golems strip you because I wanted to ogle Harry, I did it to strip you of you artifacts. I know you're powerless.'

He bowed his head in apparent defeat.

-'You're right of course but you forgot about my dad's cloak.' He stared to her right.

As she turned with a curse on her lips he sprang.

The leap in one sixth gravity propelled him to her.

With his shoulder he rolled over her and bore them both to the ground.

He heard the curses fly above him and the screech of metal as the golems were dispatched one by one.

-'I'm sorry Hermione but even if it means bringing Voldie back I have to undo this.'

He smile as she dug her fingernails in his bare arms.

With almost no effort she sprang up and turned to her left.

Ron dropped the cloak as he threw a large copper and steel contraption towards them.

Time slowed as the machine flew towards them.

Hermione turned to present Harry's back to the incoming missile.

As she turned Harry raised both his knees and pushed against her stomach.

She screamed as their plan materialized.

Harry felt the cold impact as the machine wrapped around him.

A curse emerged from her hand as the blue field enveloped him.

Just as it was going to impact on his bare chest the whole scene changed, showering them with agonizing heat waves.

Hermione had had a so so night last night and her mind was still on the crazy Ravenclaw when she walked out of the shower.

She was turning toward her four poster when a flash of blue light exploded silently in front of her.

She gaped as a burned and naked man tumbled to the floor and tangled himself in her clothes.

She was about to scream for help when she saw the scar on his forehead.

-'Harry?' She inched forward as the figured groaned.

Tentatively she put a hand on his bare arm. It was hot to the touch even where the man was not burned.

-'Harry are you ok?' She realized that she had been whispering when the man exhaled.

He opened his eyes and she could see the familiar green that she had learned to recognize.

-'Hermione?' His voice was hoarse.

-'It's me Harry, what happened to you?' She tried to indicate the foot long burns as well as the obvious ten years he'd aged since she had seen him. Yesterday!

He lunged into a hug and started mumbling.

-'It's ok.' She patted his back awkwardly. 'there there.'

Releasing her he got to his knees.

-'Oh god Hermione it's so good to see you.'

-'What happened to you?'

-'I was sent from the future, I came here to prevent the destruction of the world.'

-'But that's impossible.' She blurted in her familiar fashion. 'If you changed events then you would disappear.'

He smiled as he stared at his translucent hand.

-'That's right Hermione, only one more thing before I go.' He delicately put a kiss on her forehead.

She had barely time to be shocked when she heard him speak against her skin.

-'_Obliviate_.'

* * *

-'This is worst then herding a bag of kittens!' Ron exclaimed once again as he tried to get all the first years into the great hall.

-'Oops.'

The exclamation was soft but it had that penetrative quality that only few others had. It shared it with "Oh gods" or "Run". So when it was followed by a soft pop Ron went very quiet and quickly looked behind him.

The sight fortunately was just a small bag that wriggled slightly.

Of course the last 4 full years of a magical education taught to be cautious when dealing with magically appearing wriggling things.

Hermione turned to it cautiously. Her gasp had escaped as soon as her red haired friend had spoken but she understood better then him the nature of what had happened.

She walked to the purple bag and slowly pulled the mouth of it open.

She couldn't help the smile that stuck to her lips.

Two tiny kitten heads peered up at her before quickly jumping out of it.

The Awwww's that rang out from the first years still going into the great halls were intensified when 3 more kittens walked out of it.

She gently put the mouth of the bag to ground level and let the last five crawl out over one another and into the great hall.

-'What is this Ms. Granger?' Professor McGonnagal stood at the bottom of the stairs. She was looking with inordinate fondness at the orange kitten now being quietly petted by a young girl.

-'It's a minor wish ring professor.' Hermione extended her hand towards her.

-'Wish?' Ron and McGonnagal exclaimed simultaneously.

-'Well, that's what I call it but what it really is is a conjuration charm with a vocal and intent trigger.'

-'Intent trigger Ms. Granger? Does it actually read minds?' McGonnagal looked impressed at this.

-'No not really, it was supposed to check for tension in the voice that actually meant he really wanted it but for some reason I think I messed up and it actually triggers on lies or metaphors used in annoyance or anger.'

-'But I wasn't lying.' Ron looked at one of the kittens curiously. 'Are they actually conjured kittens? Will they stay like this?'

-'No it's actually more of a solid illusion, they'll only stay for about 3, maybe 4 weeks.' Hermione folded the bag as she spoke.

All three of them walked into the great hall as they spoke.

-'I am impressed by your command of enchantments,' She looked at the purple bag the young girl was putting away. 'I was under the impression that voice recognition itself was difficult enough without adding something to recognize the intent of the user.'

-'Thank you professor.'

-'So it wasn't because of a lie but because I was cross at the firsties for being so difficult.'

-'Exactly,' She petted a calico kitten that was wandering on the Ravenclaw table. 'The magic is supplied by the wearer so it can be a little exhausting.'

-'How much are we talking on the disillusionment scale?' Ron was staring at some of the quite fine rune work on the ring.

Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow at this name. She of course knew what the charm they referred to was but she had never heard it put on a scale against anything.

-'It's a 2.5 per pound of matter and about 1.8 if there's a spelling attached to the conjuration.'

-'Oh wow, that's,' He reached into a first years lap and picked up the kitten by the scruff of it's neck for a moment. '2 pounds each, plus the bag we're talking almost 30 on the scale.' He gave the kitten back to the first year.

-'I take it this would be the equivalent energy to cast the disillusionment spell 30 times?' McGonagall was looking at one of the black cats as it pawed at a string being teased by two Hufflepuff girls.

-'Pretty much.' Ron answered. 'We devised it, Harry and me, when we started in first year and the toughest we could do was that spell.

-'Very well, do be careful with this Ms Granger, I cannot imagine what would happen with some of the metaphors that people commonly use here.'

-'Of course professor.'

As they sat down they saw their least favorite person glaring at the white kitten drinking milk from a cup on his table.

-'Pfff what's so special about conjuring a bag of kittens.' Malfoy sneered at her.

-'Well if it's so easy Malfoy, why don't you do it?' Harry spoke up as he joined them at the table.

-'I could if I wanted to I just don't feel like adding to the mess.'

The voice was whispered but the malice in it was unmistakable. Obviously one of the Hufflepuff first years was trying to call out the bragging bleached blonde.

-'Liar Liar pants on fire!'

The response was certainly not what anyone in the world expected.

-'Aah, I'm not wearing pants!'

The speculative and slightly horrified looks were interrupted by a screech from the entrance.

Every single person turned to see Pansy Parkinson screaming as smoke came from under her robes.

* * *

-'Here you go Hermione.'

The night of celebration had worn thin on the busy haired girl. When she eyed the proffered glass she glared rather then look up.

-'What is this?' She slowly grabbed the proffered glass.

-'It's lemonade Hermione,' Ron smiled as he gestured with his own empty glass. 'My own recipe.'

-'Mmmmmh,' She put the glass down on the armchair. 'Thank you.'

-'I'm sorry Hermione but it's not everyday they cheer for me you can cut me a break.' Ron was still smiling as he sat down.

-'It's not just the Weasley is our King song Ron, it's just been a very long day.' She grabbed the glass again. 'I'm glad you won the Quidditch match.' She put the lemonade to her lips intending of take a sip in order to placate her friend.

As the sweet taste hit her tongue Ron spoke up quite fast.

-'Just remember that to get out you need to finish the glass.'

She swallowed just a little too fast at this and bent over coughing.

When she finally stopped she turned back to her friend.

-'What?'

But he was long gone.

Around her was a field.

The grass was obviously wild and the flowers gave a fragrance that was both enticing and soothing.

She turned with a shocked gasp as she heard the giggling behind her.

A statuesque blonde girl waved at her from less then six feet away.

She waved gently as the wind caught her hair.

-'Are you a sorceress?' She pushed a strand behind her ear with a delicate finger.

-'What?' Hermione was starting to feel self conscious as the girl giggled prettily.

-'I said are you a sorceress?' She pointed at Hermione's feet. 'You just appeared out of nowhere.'

-'I ...I, uh, I was in school when I appeared here,' She tried to pat her hair gently when she felt the glass slosh in her hand. 'Where is here?'

-'You are on Terra, in the theocracy of Oricam.'

The revelation that she was NOT in the past worried her more then it reassured.

-'Terra, Earth?' She put the cold glass against her forehead to cool it down a little.

-'Yes,' She tried to hide a smile with her hand. 'So, are you?'

-'No, …, What?' She brought the glass back down. 'Yes, I'm a witch actually.'

-'Ooh, that's amazing.' She leaned forward delicately and stared at Hermione. 'Are you all right, was the magic too much?'

-'What, oh yes, I just need a drink or something.'

The young woman laughed out loud at this.

-'Good of you to bring one with you then.' She pointed to the glass still sloshing in Hermione's hand.

Head still spinning Hermione brought the glass to her lips.

She was swallowing the cool mouthful when she realized that this was what brought her into this in the first place.

The noise that greeted her ears was a lot more familiar.

The only problem was that it was familiar for home, not for Hogwarts.

She looked around her in shock at the remnants of the parking lot.

It looked like a small yield missile at landed in the middle of this and destroyed half of the structure.

Luckily for her it had happened long enough ago that life had gone back to normal around it and she could see normal traffic down in the street.

She was still getting her bearings when a tall man in a white trench coat flew through the floor, seemingly hit by a bolt of lightning, only to stand back up and screamed something about making him harder for things to come.

Before a stray bolt could hit her she quickly took another big gulp of the lemonade.

-'Ron, when I get my hands on you I am going to kill you!'

-'Who is Ron?' A tall man asked her quietly.

He was wearing a black coat with red clouds on it. As she gaped he slowly tilted his head back to reveal red eyes.

-'Oh gods!' The eyes told her everything she needed to know and she quickly took another drink.

She only had a second to see another man, almost seven feet tall, wearing the same outfit.

Her first impression was of warmth.

She was standing on a sandy beach barely three feet from the surf.

The sun was barely above the horizon and as she stared in awe it slowly rose with the songs of birds.

Hermione turned around to see if she would be greeted by any strange folks here too.

However the beach seemed to be deserted.

It had been less then a minute since she had taken her first sip but this was a lot to take in.

There were maybe two big gulps of lemonade left.

So two worlds to go.

She put the glass in the sand and screwed it in gently so she wouldn't knock it over.

The sun was warm on her face and she closed her eyes as she laid down.

Ok this had definitely been weird but whatever it was, it did have it's good sides.

When she felt that her nerves had loosened and she her heartbeat had come down from a hum to where you could distinguish individual heartbeats.

With a sigh of resignation she grabbed the cup.

As she stood up she stared out onto the waves. She tried to memorize the peaceful feeling that it brought to her.

The glass touched her lips and closing her eyes she took another gulp.

She was slowly swishing the lemonade in her mouth when she steeled herself and swallowed.

There was a roar of sound behind her and it was reflexes that threw her forward as the huge snap resonated from where she had been standing.

The mouth belonged to a dragon.

Its mouth was big enough to swallow her whole.

As it reared back for another go she saw the piles of gold that the beast was laying on.

With a quick jerk she threw the rest of the lemonade down.

She was swallowing when the huge maw opened again and a gout of flame started emerging.

-'So, how was it?' Ron grinned as he extended a hand to help her up.

-'You!' She was at a loss for words.

-'What did you see?'

-'See?' She could feel her face redden as her heartbeat lowered. 'SEE?'

-'No need to scream.' He was cautiously edging back from her.

-'I was almost eaten by a bloody big dragon you PRAT!' Her voice cracked with the relief of still being alive.

-'But you were perfectly safe.' Ron tried to take a step back but his hand was death gripped by the irate girl in front of him.

-'Safe?' She was hefting the glass for throwing at head potential. 'How could I possibly be safe when you throw in the mouth of great big dragons and in the middle of fights between crazy guys!'

-'You were safe.' He tried again to get his hand back but short of a truck he would never get it back. 'It sent you to those dimensions but you were out of phase so they couldn't touch you at all I promise!'

-'Explain yourself, Right now!' She let go of his hand and put the glass down slowly.

-'I was trying to make starwood for one of my experiments, but it's gotta grow from a magic seed and I couldn't get one.' He took a gulp of his own glass. 'So I took some seeds from the kitchen and I put some runes on them to infuse the wood.'

-'Ok.' She sat back down.

-'The twins found glowing lemons in the green house so their first thought was to make something drinkable out of it and see what happened.'

-'That would be like them.' She harrumphed.

-'Right so when George was out he got attacked by a shark in a world where he couldn't see land and he found out you can't be hurt there.'

-'Very well, you are forgiven this time but you had better show me your runic scheme on those lemons!'

She waggled her finger under his nose. 'So why did you continue doing it?'

-'Well you know, when life gives you lemon, make your own brand of transdimensional traveling lemonade and prank your friends.'


	6. Chapter 6

-'Hey Hermione.' Harry was just walking down in the common room when he saw his friend walking down her own set of stairs.

-'Morning Harry. How are you?' She put the cage she was carrying on the table.

-'Good, huh? What's with the bat?'' He pointed to the lethargic animal in the cage.

-'Ron.' She said this with a bit of a chill in her voice.

-'That's Ron? Did you change him?' Harry raised an eyebrow curiously.

-'Oh no, he did this to himself.' The room was definitively getting colder.

Harry sat down carefully.

-'I'm listening.'

The first week of school was always hard on her and she was glad that it was time to go to bed.

She was walking along the dark corridor when she heard the rustling.

Of course 5 years of being friends with Harry Potter had told her that it really wasn't paranoia when they were out to get you.

Her wand in her hand she slowly started looking around her for the source of the leathery sound.

She was looking back when a whoosh and a gust of air surprised her.

-'Tremble mortal.' It was a soft whisper by her ear.

It dripped with darkness and deeds that could not be done in the light.

-'_Everbero_!' The flash of the spell was only matched by the anger she felt at being attacked by a vampire of all things.

The "ouf" of surprise that came from the black shape did surprise her.

-'Ron?'She whirled as the tip of her wand illuminated.

-'Ouch 'Mione.' Ron was sprawled on the ground with some flowing black cloak tangled around his legs.

-'Where did you come from?'

Ron glared at her as he picked himself off the floor.

-'Well?' She tapped her foot as she glared.

-'I was hanging from the ceiling.' Ron glared back as he finished readjusting his cape.

-'Your shoelaces?'

-'As a matter of fact no.' He grabbed his cloak with both hands and raised his arms to the side.

As he did she could see the ragged edge of it. Held like this it looked like some vampire cloak.

-'Mwahahahah!' Ron tried to cackle like a mad scientist as he flapped his cloak like a pair of wings.

She was going to mock him when he started flying.

She gaped.

He circled a foot above her head before ascending.

As he was about to touch the ceiling he quickly flipped and touched it with his toes.

She expected him to dive bomb to the floor when he folded his cloak around him like a bat.

In the dark corridor he was all but invisible.

-'Wow!' Hermione whispered in awe.

-'Cool huh?' He grinned at her upside down.

-'That's amazing Ron.' She pointed her wand at him to get a better look.

As the light touched he wobbled slightly.

-'Don't!' He said as he covered his face with one of the wings.

Hastily Hermione lowered her wand.

-'Why?'

-'It works on darkness.' Ron answered. 'The more light you shine on it the less powerful it is.' He swiftly dropped to the ground.

-'Cool.' She again shined her light against the fabric. 'How did you make it?'

-'I made it out of leather and I used Dire Bat wings to make the runes.' He showed her the lining of the cloak. Where the metacarpi of a bat would be were silver threads. As he flapped a little blue light coursed through them up to the collar.

-'And why,' She started tapping her foot again. 'Did you think it would be a good idea to jump out at me from the darkness?'

-'I was looking for you and I saw you coming the other way.' He hung his head a little. 'I just thought it would be funny.'

-'Fine.' She huffed in a way that promised that this could be brought back up if any further misbehavior was contemplated. 'So what did you want to talk to me about?'

-'Well there's the flying and clinging to walls but I added another thing.'

-'What's that?' She asked curiously.

-'I made it so that it can turn me into a bat for a while!' He grinned hugely.

Harry stared at the bat dozing in the little cage.

-'So it worked then?'

-'It did but I think Ron forgot to check why people learned to be animagi rather then make a simple object to turn at will.' Hermione glared balefully.

-'Yeah I thought about that in third year,' He nodded in sync with her as they remembered exactly why he had thought of it then. 'So what went wrong?'

-'He used a cancellation spell and of course he can't use it when it's been transfigured.' She picked up the cage as she stood up. 'Now I just can't wait to see McGonagall's face when he tries to explain this to her.'

Harry scrambled off his chair. He wanted to see that too.

* * *

Harry and Ron were walking back from care of magical creatures as the first few notes reached them.

It was a melodious voice and the higher pitch made it easy to distinguish even this far away.

Looking at each other with intrigue they turned away from the castle and started searching for the source of the sound.

It was almost 10 minutes later that they found it.

Hermione was singing.

Not only was she singing with a beautiful and clear voice but it seemed the birds of the forest enjoyed it as much as she did.

As they watched another two brightly colored birds landed in her outstretched hand and joined her with a few notes.

Both boys had been watching for quite a while before they could pull their jaws off the floor.

-'Mione?' Ron asked quietly.

With a start all the birds that had been trilling with the bushy haired girl fled.

It was only when the storm of feathers stopped that she turned to them.

-'Ron, Harry! What are you doing here?'

-'We were coming back from Hagrid's class when we heard you pull your sleeping beauty here.' Harry answered a little more confidently.

-'Yeah Hermione, since when do you come singing to animals in the forest?'

Hermione blushed crimson. She tried to surreptitiously remove something from around her neck.

-'I wasn't singing to them.' She mumbled.

-'Uh, sorry Hermione but we heard you. You were like one of those princesses in kids shows.' Harry insisted. He noted that the choker had been carefully put in one of her pockets.

-'I have to go to class, I'll see you guys later.' Picking up her backpack she brushed past them hurriedly.

It only half surprised Harry when Ron hurriedly put on a cut off glove on his right hand.

He was about to ask when he saw the runes glow on the back of it.

As He stared Ron pointed his hand forward and made a grabbing motion. He followed it with a quick movement up and back to him.

Not really surprised to see the choker fly towards his red headed friend he examined the glove.

-'Nice. Ghostly hands spell of summoning and banishers?'

-'Both actually. I keyed the ghostly hands to a distance component that I can sub-vocalize and then if I gesture palm up and towards me it summons whatever is in the spell.' Ron grinned. 'Now let's see what the young lady was trying to hide from us.' Ron examined the piece of cloth.

-'Those don't look like singing runes.' Harry noted.

-'No, they look like translation runes but I don't understand the keying.' He pointed at two sets of runes.

-'This one looks like the modification for the user so they can speak the language.' Harry pointed to the Sumerian rune that was so closely associated with Babel.

-'And this one is to reverse the hearing.' Ron nodded. 'So why was she singing?'

-'No idea mate.' Harry turned towards the castle. 'I hope you can return it to her without her noticing.'

Harry had not really expected an answer to this since Ron rarely thought that far. That was why he did a double take when Ron broke into song.

Mind you it was quite nice to the ear.

But it was still Ron. Ron singing.

Now that he was only a few feet away he realized that though the harmony was wonderful there actually were no words.

It was more akin to opera. You could hear that there were words and it sounded beautiful but it was incomprehensible.

-'Ok so it looks like the singing is just a side effect.' He turned to his friend.

Ron was pawing frantically at the clasp of the choker.

His song was still beautiful to the ear but it had taken a certain urgency of tone.

-'You're thinking that maybe she made the thing password protected and she subtly forgot to make it obvious?' Harry looked amusedly as Ron tried to change his voice back t normal words. 'And it's a definite possibility that she also made the activation password protected.'

Ron glared at him as he trilled a few angry notes.

They finally caught up to her in the great hall during lunch.

Hermione was working on school work but she looked up at the music coming from the big doors.

Ron walked in with a flock of small birds and at least two squirrels following.

The choker was standing out on her friend's neck. More so because she had put a spell to have it glow bright pink after too long a use.

She went back to her work until her friend arrived at her table.

She only looked up when a robin landed on her work.

-'Good morning again Ron.'

Ron trilled frantically at her.

-'I'm sorry Ron I don't understand what you're saying.'

A few more tweets and whistles made the birds look from him to her in obvious amusement.

-'I have trouble understanding you Ron. Was that "I am so sorry oh dear light of my life. I will never ever try to steal unknown enchanting experiments from you and try them on myself because I am a nosy twat who can't leave well enough alone"?'

Ron lost the glare when the obviously angered tone from his girlfriend penetrated. He was eagerly nodding when she finished.

Hermione took a sip of the glass in front of her. She sat straight up for a second and opened her mouth.

The notes that came out were crystal clear in the air.

Harry and Ron were so shocked by her voice that they failed to notice the choker falling off.

-'And let that be a lesson to you young man.'

Ron jumped as McGonagall spoke right behind him.

* * *

-'Hey!'

Marietta Edgecombe exclaimed as he sprawled into the great hall.

Ginny who had been right in front of her turned around.

-'Are you ok?'

-'Yeah but someone just kicked me.' She picked her backpack up. 'It's the third time today.'

They both turned to see who could have done this. They were surprised to see the entrance hall utterly empty.

-'A prank maybe?' Ginny offered as she made her way to the Gryffindor table.

She sat next to Harry as he finished giggling and gave him a stare.

-'You did this?' She murmured.

Harry shook his head with a smile and pointed to Ron.

With a glare Ginny nodded at her brother to explain.

Ron smirked and pulled a yellow block out of his pocket.

Ginny stared uncomprehendingly when he pulled the first layer off the block.

He carefully applied a black strip at the bottom of the little piece of yellow paper and started writing on it.

The pencil he used looked like one of those carpentry ones but it had an odd metallic sheen to its tip.

Hermione was staring over his shoulder and after a few moments she nodded and went back to her notebook.

-'Hold it by the black strip and stick it to something.' Ron handed her the little yellow paper.

Staring at the odd runes she gripped it by the bottom and put it on the plate next to hers.

As she let go she realized that a strip at the top of the paper had a glue like material on it.

The drain on her magic was negligible but she still wondered what it was meant to do.

As she turned to ask the plate disappeared.

-'What the..?'

-'it's a wizard repellent ward.' Harry explained.

-'That's pretty amazing! How did you manage to contain it?' She remembered the table incident a few years back.

It was Ron who answered.

-'Hermione got those, they're sticky notes.' He waved the yellow block of paper. 'It turns out that they're actual paper so they make an excellent organic component for enchanting.'

-'And the way the glue bonds to whatever it's sticking to actually extends the spell to it.'

-'So we can put runes on it and stick it to something: Voila, instant enchanting!' Ron grinned.

-'Two questions,' She lifted two fingers as the plate reappeared. 'Why the black strip? And what has that got to do with Marietta?'

-'The black strip was my idea actually.' Harry buffed his fingernails theatrically. 'It's just metallic tape so that it can hold the magic charge for the ward. The more time you wanted it to last the more tape you add.'

-'As for Lady Sneak,' Hermione looked up from her work. 'Harry here put a transference spell in that little puddle outside of Hagrid's.'

Ginny turned to Harry with a puzzled look.

-'It means every time someone steps into the puddle it transfers the energy to a post it note giving the impression that you've been kicked in the bum.'

Ginny turned to the 7th year sitting at the Ravenclaw table.

-'And Hagrid's 4th year class starts in 3... 2...1...' Harry grinned as the squeal of surprise started.


	7. Chapter 7

He stared out of the bay.

The blue disk filled most of the view as he put his elbow up and leaned on the glass.

To his right the blinking lights of the ISS made a slow arc from the edge of the disk towards him.

A small noise made him turn around.

Behind him lay the bed room of his little nest.

In the middle of the giant silk surface a lock of black hair floated gently.

Her name was Cynthia.

They had met in London during a shopping trip.

She had made the trip from New Zealand to learn more about foreign wizarding culture and she had been unimpressed enough by his name that he had actually offered her a drink at his place.

Pushing gently he soared towards the opening in the far wall.

Drifting had become second nature after a few weeks and he easily passed through the opening to the food area.

With a gentle tap he canceled his momentum and faced the bar.

He remembered the hysterical laughter when he had offered her the cognac in a sippy cup.

He had laughed when he remembered the first time one of his friends had tried to simply conjure a drink in an open container.

With the drink in his hand he flew back to the viewing port.

As he pushed gently against it to stop he chuckled quietly.

He remembered Hermione explaining to him the tremendous forces that would be exerted against it and why muggle space ships only had miniscule hatches.

She had stared open mouthed when he showed her the spelling machine.

It was a film of carbon nanotubes with a runic scheme embedded in each one and a crystal sheet as the power cell.

He had shown her how each tube worked as a wand and spelled each individual molecule with a bonding charm and a shield charm. It was only a few pound of resistance per spell but when you add a few pounds of resistance to the bonding between each individual molecule, well you get something that is for all intents and purposes indestructible.

So he stood in his silk pyjama pants staring at the void of outer space.

The nest was on a geosynchronous orbit with the UK longitude but the orbit meant that right now they were over Morocco.

The air had been a problem until Ron showed him is air purification rune.

It was a marvel of technomagical engineering.

It was a standard muggle scrubber but he had used a runic scheme to reverse the process and power the separation of oxygen and CO2. It filtered the air until the mix going through was exactly that of Hogwarts ground level.

He had built it as 4 spheres grouped around one giant central one. The bedroom served as the hub with the viewing port opposite the entrance to the food storage and preparation sphere.

The bed took up the triangle made up of three of the hatches. It had started out as a net to hold him in place but after the first "special friend" invited herself up and complained he had brought up the bed.

On earth it would barely qualify as a throw rug, albeit made of silk, but up here under almost no gravity it was the height of comfort and luxury.

The grooming sphere was the only one with gravity. It had been added the first time he had apparated a girl to Grimmauld place only to run into Ron. It housed a bath the size of a Jacuzzi and a standing shower as well as the usual amenities.

He looked towards his office where he had started working on a new device for extra vehicular activities. He had had to use a spelled suit to build the station and the spelling did give it more than a little stiffness and made it awkward to work in for any length of time.

Turning back to the view he waved at the ISS disappearing to his right. The nest was protected against any form of detection that the three of them had been able to think of but he still felt that the achievements of normal people without magic deserved to be applauded.

-'Harry?' The voice was just a little soft with sleep.

-'I'm here Cynthia.' He tried to keep his voice low so as not to startle her.

She pushed gently against the pillows and let the covers float gently off of her.

-'And what are you doing over there please?' She mock pouted as she floated toward him.

-'I couldn't sleep so I was watching the ISS drift by.' He caught her around the waist and set her down in the artificial gravity by the view port.

-'But you said they can't see us right?' She cuddled against him despite the perfect temperature that reigned.

-'I hope they can't or you've just mooned them quite thoroughly.' He laughed as she started poking him in the rib. 'Come on let's get back to bed.'

As she pushed them away from the port he thought that zero gravity was really the only way to live.

* * *

This was a small pub in Paris.

He had been able to get the gig with his band because this place had a band playing every single night of the week.

They weren't bad at all, even ok by some reckoning but they did need a lot of practice.

Lucky for them their lead singer had a knack for playing his guitar that made everyone come back for seconds.

When you recorded it and played it back later it lacked that certain indefinable something but live it literally rocked the place to its foundations.

They finished the sound tests in the small area and turned to the public.

Pushing his long mop of bright red hair the lead stood up straight in front of the microphone.

-'Ladies and gentleman, Mesdames et messieurs, we're the Cannons!'

The scattered applause was still warm for such an unknown band.

The bass started out on a G chord set the time.

As the piano picked up the audience winced.

The band had only been playing for 5 notes and already they'd missed one.

Their rhythms were good but it was obvious that they were a good few months from playing in public.

The patron straight in front of the small alcove was about to bend to his girls ear when the guitar started.

The mocking words in everyone's throats died suddenly.

The sound rose from the speakers but it was only a pale echo of the vibrations that seemed to flow from the players fingers.

Still playing he bent to the microphone and started singing.

His voice was a smooth contralto and he seemed to know the Latin syllables with enough familiarity that the transition back to English was done without a hitch.

Piano and Bass joined their voices at the chorus but the words seemed flat compared to the smooth tones that the singer could express.

As the Chorus died he let his fingers play on the neck of his guitar in a movement that should have left sparks in the air.

The notes shone each clear and perfect. They seemed to bypass the ears of his audience and speak directly to their hearts.

Closing his eyes he missed the looks of awe that dropped to make way for a cheer that could be heard n the streets.

Still eyes closed he leaned back into the microphone and continued singing.

The song was only 3 minutes and some change but as he let the last note die away he could see in all their eyes that this had been the most meaningful 3 minutes of their lives.

It was 35 minutes later.

The first interlude had been booed quite vehemently by the clientele but the manager wanted to give them a chance to refill their glasses.

-'I don't get it.' Simon was the bass player.

-'What is it this time?' Henry had been playing piano for at least 6 months now and thought his skill was much higher than it actually was.

-'When we play live we rock hard enough to cause riots.'

-'Yes, we're awesome.' Henry took a sip from his beer.

-'But when we actually record anything and send it we get letters that pretty much tell us we suck so bad we'd need lessons to be merely bad.' Simon was staring at the darkened room.

-'We've got the only thing that matters, stage presence, it just doesn't translate on tape that's all.' He gestured to the audience. 'That's the one thing they can't tape and take away from us so they don't want to sign us.'

-'We're back on in two guys.' The singer sat by them putting down a thick wad of papers with phone numbers on them.

-'Ok.' Henry nodded.

-'Do you think Henry's right?' Simon looked at him curiously.

-'Right about what?' He took a deep draught from the beer in front of him.

-'He thinks we have "Stage Presence" and that's why we can't seem to find a label, it can't be put on tape so they don't want it.' He made air quote as he said this.

-'Sounds about right, we got something that Mug,..., mundane technology can't record so we can only do live gigs.' He took the wad of papers and threw it into his guitar case.

-'Damn I want to get signed so we can finally rest on our laurels.' He finished his beer.

-'you gotta admit that live has its advantages.' He pulled some silk thing out of his pocket.

It looked like a lacy handkerchief until Simon saw the two little strings. It had a phone number written on the triangle of fabric.

-'Hey Ron,' A voice interrupted them.

The redheaded singer turned towards the voice. It was the manager waving at them.

-'Yes?'

-'You're back on in 30 seconds Mr Weasley.'

Ron nodded at the man and walked back to his guitar.

He picked up gently and passed a delicate finger on the inlaid rune work on the back of the neck.

He had made sure that the runes didn't glow when they were activated.

The work was all his with only a few inputs from his sister.

He was just mad that charming spells in music had been made illegal in Great Britain since 1865.

Oh well, French girls seemed to be just as receptive.

He grinned wider and started to play.

* * *

-'Hey, do you mind if I use your laptop?'

The question came in a whisper from a tall young man.

-'Sure, let me save my work.' She whispered back.

The library was quite large and of course Oxford could afford free Wi-Fi but not all students could buy a laptop on top of the tuition.

-'Thanks.' He sat in her vacated seat.

After a few minutes of typing and searching he looked above the screen. The young woman had picked up one of the numerous volumes that had been sitting there and was reading through it.

-'I'm sorry if this sounds weird but,' He paused for a second. 'Have I seen you somewhere before?'

-'This is my first semester here.' She replied without looking up.

-'I don't know why I have this feeling I've met you. What's your major?' He had stopped using the mouse.

-'I have a double major Philosophy/Organic chemistry.' She shot him a small look over her book.

-'Those don't usually mesh. Did you take any psychology classes?' He scrutinized her as he asked.

-'This is my first semester remember. I'm taking the fundamentals class right now.' She closed the book over her finger.

-'With Foster?' He grinned.

-'Maybe. Are you done?' She nodded at her laptop.

-'Uh? Oh, almost.' He turned back to the computer. 'Say d'you want to go out on Friday?'

-'I like to go out every Friday.' She paused for just a second. 'With you? No.' She reopened her book.

It was only a few minutes later that the boy stood up with a mumbled thank you and walked away.

She had barely sat back down when the seat in front of her was filled up.

-'Good afternoon Susan, can I help you?'

Susan Bones grinned conspiratorially as she starred at the dejected boy making his way out of the library.

-'You could have been a little nicer you know.'

-'I could have but that would have encouraged him.' She almost growled as she started closing applications.

-'He left his phone number again?' Susan craned to see the screen.

-'Yup, as well as the address of the pub he's going to on Friday.'

-'Hermione, how do you expect to enjoy yourself properly at school if you don't date anyone?'

-'Gods, you sound like Lavender.' She started putting things away.

It didn't shock her companion when a dozen volumes the size of a laptop fit easily in a backpack that was barely bigger then a hardcover novel.

-'You know,' Susan said reflectively. 'If I had known how useful those enchantment things could be I would have studied them a little more.'

-'Naa, you've got me for that.' Hermione smiled at her friend. 'You want to get back to the dorm before we go meet the guys?'

-'How did you know?' Susan didn't even try to defend herself from the accusation of a secret party.

-'You've got that secret smile on your face that tells me you found somebody else to bring to our dorm room and you want it to be a surprise.'

They both looked carefully around before disapparating out of the empty library.

The room they appeared in was more fit for a palace then a dorm even in Oxford.

It was a living room fully 60ft across. The balcony at the far end showed a view from a cliff overlooking the sea.

Susan was making her way up the stairs when she heard Hermione mutter.

-'It's kinda hard to bring a boy to your room and explain about the magically expanded closet.'

-'That plus it's always hard to explain the artificial view from Dover in landlocked Oxford.'

-'That too.' She looked up at her friend. 'That boy had better not be a muggle.'

-'His name is Scott. He's a squib from San Francisco.' Susan Grinned ear to ear. 'This way you can show off your Jacuzzi with all the little heating and cleaning schemes and he won't detect it if you activate that virility one you've got hidden.' She gave a wink.

Hermione had the good grace to blush at this.

-'Hey! It's not my fault those boys can be so dense sometimes. I figured it'd be a good thing to add.'

Susan laughed as she reached the first landing of their apartment.

-'I'm not complaining dear, remember when Justin came to visit?' She grinned as Hermione gaped. 'yup, even with your little trick he wasn't taking the hint.'

Still blushing Hermione watched her friend disappear up the stairs.

-'Well let's hope Scott can get the hint then.' She made her way to her own bedroom with a grin.


End file.
